Snake Charm
by Vandelle
Summary: Faced with imminent poverty and the loss of her own sanity, Tea Gardner embarks on a path of revenge, seduction and self-discovery as her forgotten past begins to reassert itself. Rated for language, violence, sex, kink, drug use and psychological trauma.
1. Hiss

**disclaimer**: I do not own _Yu-Gi-Oh_

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><p><em><strong>"Hiss"<strong>_

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><p>Teenagers. Noise. Food. Talking, talking, more talking. Backpacks, tote bags. Trading cards.<p>

Each detail, each piece of the scene unfolding around her began to separate until it was no longer a whole, but parts drifting away from one another. She withdrew from the world around her by degrees, pulling further and further back until reality itself narrowed to a dim light flickering at the end of a very long tunnel. The cafeteria noises and the chatter of her friends gradually dropped to a distant rumble on the outskirts of her awareness.

It was a skill Tea Gardner had cultivated in childhood, when she was prone to periods of daydreaming so intense that the real world often seemed miles beyond the reach of her tiny fingers. Now a high-school junior, she turned her thoughts inward yet again, moving through the fertile Eden that was her waking dreamscape. This time, though, it wasn't merely to luxuriate in the kaleidoscopic twists and turns of some inner fantasy concocted for her entertainment.

This time she had an idea.

It was more of a plan, really. A scheme, a ruse, a Mind Crush of epic proportions. It was like a strong liquor she had once stolen a sip of at the age of twelve: Cool as ice, yet capable of a delicious burn that filled her body with an almost scandalous warmth.

_It's also never going to happen, _she told herself emphatically, as she had many times before.

The idea had been lying in wait like a serpent in the tall grass of Tea's mind, patient in the knowledge that its prey could not elude it forever. She had been putting up a good fight for the better part of two months now. She dodged and parried with a swiftness a professional fencer would have coveted. She engaged the serpent in circular arguments designed to make them both too weary to continue fighting. And, despite her secret ambivalence towards religion, she even found herself praying to God for the strength to not give in.

Still, as the serpent knew, she couldn't run forever. It was only a matter of time before ...

_"Tea."_

The sound of her name being spoken, though probably at a reasonable volume, seemed to resonate like a clap of thunder in the echo chamber of her mind. Her body gave a violent lurch as though attached to a cord being yanked. And all at once she was back in the Domino High cafeteria. She blinked a few times to get her bearings and promptly realized that everyone at the table was staring at her.

Her eyes darted from face to face. "Sorry, what?" she said, unsure who had spoken, who she was addressing.

"I was asking if you still wanted to come over after school?" Yugi Mohto said, his sandwich poised a few inches from his mouth and a look of deep concern on his face.

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be there," she said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Damn, Tea, it's like you were on another planet for a moment there," Joey Wheeler said with a grin.

She managed a chuckle that sounded curiously hollow to her own ears, but fortunately the moment passed and the conversation turned back to card games. She offered a few token comments here and there, but mostly retreated back into herself, though not deeply enough to draw attention to herself again.

_**Pathetic.**_

Tea closed her eyes and rubbed her right temple. _Not again _...

_**Yes, again. Make him yours. Then break his will. **_

A barely suppressed shudder overtook her body_. You're not supposed to be here, _she silently replied, stoically sipping from her milk carton.

_**C'mon**_, crooned the serpent, heedless of her dismissal, _**it'll be easy. You've seen the way he looks at you ...**_

"Hey, I'll see you guys later, ok?" Tea said, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she slid out of her seat. She made for the doors, weaving through the labyrinth of lunch tables, all the while trying not to scream in response to the voice in her head.

_I'm not doing it._

_**After what he DID? Like hell you aren't! You were ready to kill him for his twunt-faced insolence. **_

_It wasn't even that bad. I mean, compared to the way he usually acts -_

_**BULLSHIT, **_roared the serpent. _**Make him yours ...**_

_No -_

_**Then break. His. Will.**_

And just like that, the serpent was gone, slithering back into the recesses of her mind with one final sullen hiss: _**Bastard has it coming**_.

Tea entered the library and noted with relief that it was relatively empty. She headed for one of the private tables in the back.

And found the aforementioned bastard sitting in her usual seat.

He lifted his head at her faltering approach, a trick of the sunlight filtering through the enormous windows giving his thick brown hair the illusion of an entirely inappropriate halo. He fixed her with a stare that called to mind an aloof aristocrat, then looked her over as though she were a filthy peasant who had come uninvited into his throne room. An ugly smirk which didn't detract from his icy good looks the way it should have stretched across his face, his "twunt-faced insolence" once again in full effect as he lowered the book in his hand.

"Are you lost, Gardner?" he sneered. "This _is _a library, after all. There aren't very many pictures books here."

A chill took hold of her then, blooming diamond-hard in her stomach and snaking outward to the tips of her fingers and toes. A steel rod replaced her spine as she assumed the rigid stance of a West Point cadet. She felt her face go slack, taking on the blank, impassive look of a stranger who bodes neither good nor ill will to another.

Encased in this icy shell was fire. Molten fury roiled through her, beating against its wintry cage, struggling to get out and make the bastard pay. It sparked and smoked. It boiled. It hissed.

_I am calm. _

_**Oh, I got your fucking picture book right here. **_

_I am okay._

_**Open it up. See what's inside. **_

_I can handle this._

_**I fucking dare you, Kaiba-boy ... **_

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><p>Soooooo ... tell me what you think! Be honest, now, that's the only way I'll be able to learn. Also: I'm genuinely open to suggestions for future chapters. I have sort of a rough idea of where this is going, but some input could really help flesh it all out.<p> 


	2. Coil

**disclaimer**: Yep ... still don't own _Yu-Gi-Oh! _

_Author's Note: _Sorry I took so long to update! I only just recently got a keyboard to replace my old one. Let's get this show back on the road, shall we?_  
><em>

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><p><strong><em>Coil<em>**

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><p>"... to say something? Or just stand there leering at me?"<p>

Tea hadn't been leering. She knew her expression as surely as though she were seeing it from the outside.

And in a way, she was. In moments such as these, when ice-water seemed to flow through her veins instead of blood, she was afforded a degree of detachment that allowed her perspective to almost separate completely from her body. So she knew she hadn't been leering, but merely looking him with polite indifference, as though he were a particularly boring piece of furniture that someone else was trying to pass off as a Ming Dynasty heirloom.

That her protracted silence had elicited such a defensive response almost caused her impassive mask to slip.

Almost.

"Pardon me," she said blandly. "I didn't see you there."

He arched his brow. Clearly, this wasn't the reply he expected.

"You were walking right towards me."

"My mistake," she acknowledged. She turned towards one of the bookshelves and began to move away under the guise of perusal, careful not to walk too fast, lest he think she was in any way afraid of him. She made it all of four steps before his voice, slick as an oil spill, stopped her cold.

"So how's your father holding up?" The faux-sympathetic words stung, as he certainly intended, but she'd been expecting them, or some variation of them.

"He's fine," she said, still facing the bookshelf. She slipped a hand into her bag and felt for the special compartment. She found it and wrapped her fingers around its contents. The sea of lava roiling within calmed slightly at the unspoken promise of relief.

"I'm glad to hear it," he replied. "If he needs a reference, I'd be glad to give him one."

Her fingers tightened around her lifeline. A dull pain throbbed at the base of her neck, promising one hell of a migraine later.

"Your generosity is most appreciated, Kaiba," she said with cool formality. "But that won't be necessary. If you'll excuse me -"

A large, masculine hand descended upon her left shoulder. "Not just yet ..."

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><p>Seto Kaiba had been attracted to danger as a little boy. He would stick his hand out to play with fire. Climb trees that seemed to tower like skyscrapers. Run headlong into traffic just to watch and laugh as the cars swerved to avoid hitting him.<p>

And this was only for sport, what he'd done in his spare time. Factor in the dangers he'd had forced upon him, the constant shuffling between orphanages, the fistfights over scraps of food, taking on the bigger kids who messed with Mokuba ... He'd gone up against anything and everything that could have maimed or killed him, and he'd not only survived, he'd prospered. Thus, at seventeen, he was as jaded and unflappable as one would expect of a man whose youth had been more than eventful, thank you very much. There wasn't much that get his pulse pounding these days.

Laying his hand on Gardner's shoulder, therefore, should _not_ have sent a lightning bolt of anticipation chasing up and down his spine.

And yet ...

The girl turned back towards him, and he was once again struck by the utter lack of facial expression. Her cerulean eyes were jewels locked away, untouched by the light. Her stance was infuriatingly neutral. It was as though she wasn't even there. And neither was he. She might as well have been sleepwalking through this entire encounter for all the rise he could get out of her. He wondered what was going through her mind, then wondered at himself for wondering. What made her such a mystery? Who knew Mohto's sideline bimbo was capable of such steely composure?

"I hope you'll convey my sincerest regrets to your father, Gardner," he said with damn-near saccharine sweetness. "He was a great assistant."

_'Then why did you fire him?_' was the response he would have expected. Indeed, it was the response he most likely would have gotten from virtually anyone else.

But not her.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said smoothly, echoing his words back to him. "I'll be sure to let him know."

"And ... as to the offer I made you?"

A slight tic in her right cheek caught his eyes. Ah, she couldn't shrug _that_ outrageous proposal off!

"You're very ... kind to have thought me capable," she said carefully, "but I'm afraid I won't be able to ... entertain at your colleague's bachelor party. Unfortunately. Do send him my regards, though."

He grinned at her forced tactfulness. Who knew she'd take a request to strip for a bunch of her father's former employees so well?

"That's too bad. I've seen you dance. You would've been perfect." Seto let his eyes rove freely down her admittedly fine body and back up to her face ...

... Just in time to see the tail end of something lethal moving in her otherwise empty eyes. She blinked at his direct gaze, and it was gone. He took his hand off her shoulder. He realized he'd been holding his breath.

With a graceful incline of her head, she was gone, her hand balled in a fist around god-knows-what in her bag the only sign that he'd gotten to her. His pulse pounded as he took his seat again and reopened his book. He glanced up and caught the slight swish of her blue skirt. She wasn't even out of his sight yet ...

And already he was anticipating the next time he could fuck with her head. God help him, if it was the last thing he did, he'd see those impenetrable walls of hers collapse before him. Watch her crumble into nothing. And laugh, both at what he discovered within and at his own foolish interest in her.

_Soon. Soon._

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><p>The bell rang. Tea jumped at the harsh sound reverberating around her and found herself hunched over a toilet in a handicap stall, her arms out, hands braced against the wall. The stench of vomit hit her nose. She pushed down on the steel lever and the suction carried away the foul contents of her stomach. She straightened and checked the time on her cell phone. School was over. She could hear the stampede of students filing out of classrooms just beyond the door. She ducked out, pointedly avoiding her reflection in the mirror and the curious glances of a lanky girl putting on her lipstick in front of the sink.<p>

She made it to the parking lot without seeing anyone she knew, though she thought she heard Yugi calling her name at one point. She climbed into her silver Infiniti*, turned on the gas and sped off before her conscience got the best of her and forced her to make more inane chit-chat with ... Oh, god, they were her friends. Yugi was her friend. This was no way to think of a friend!

About three miles from Domino High and another four from home, the serpent reemerged, its voice sharp with accusation.**_  
><em>**

**_You put the freeze on me again._**

_I didn't mean to. It just happens. I can't control it._

**_You control more than you think, ma petite pièce du puzzle_***_*_**_._**

The car swerved. Her heart threatened to jackhammer straight through her sternum. _French? When the hell did I learn French?_

A bitter laugh positively dripping with scorn echoed back to her. _**Don't ask questions if you don't want the answers, mon cher**_**_***.**_

She pulled into the parking lot of a shopping mall and shut off the gas. She reached into her bag and found the compartment. The bottle of painkillers rattled in her shaking hand.

**_Those won't help you for long, you know. Sooner or later -  
><em>**

_Mind your own business._

**_**You are my business, little one.**_**

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><p>* What? I like Infinitis. So sue me.<p>

**_ "My little puzzle piece"_

**_* "My dear"  
><em>

I do believe we've entered the realm of severe psychological fuckery, y'all. Lemme know what you think!


	3. Constrict

_Disclaimer_: If I DID own Yu-gi-Oh! (which I DON'T), I'd cut out all the filler episodes. But seeing as how that comprises roughly three-quarters of each and every season, you can imagine what a roaring success _that_ would be ...

**AN:** Just for the record, I don't think all the chapter titles will be snake-themed. Just saying. Also, if you're wondering why I've taken so long to update _this_ time, it's because my modem died on me. Yep. First, it was the damn keyboard, and then my modem. It's like my computer hates me or something.

Anyway, let's keep moving. I got a nice meaty chapter for you this time, kiddies. I'd like to apologize for how lightweight the first two chaps were.

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><p><em><strong>Constrict<strong>_

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><p>Joey and Yugi were dueling on the coffee table amidst soda cans and half-eaten pizza crusts. Tristan sat on one side with a slice of pepperoni in his hand, providing a running commentary of the action (with his mouth full) as it unfolded. Tea sat opposite him, legs crossed on the thick carpeting of Yugi's rec room. Her eyes were fixed on the board, though she couldn't bring herself to give a damn about what was happening there. Not with those lovely pharmaceuticals circulating through her veins, soothing the frayed ends of her raw nerves and the migraine that had been brewing all day.<p>

"Tea, you get the notes for history?" Tristan asked, his voice seeming to echo hollowly outside the warm cocoon she was currently floating in. At some point he'd crossed to the other side of the room, a few feet behind her where she'd dropped her tote bag before settling in.

"Yeah, they're in there somewhere."_ Mmm ...  
><em>

She basked in the setting sun's orange glow flowing through the glass of the sliding door. The tension of the day gradually eased its way out of her muscles as the drug began to do its trick in earnest. A decided languor began to take hold of her, promising the rarest of luxuries: a full night's sleep. She rubbed the stiff muscles in her neck; her bones popped as she gingerly rolled her head to and fro. When had _sleep_ become such a hassle? If it wasn't insomnia, it was nightmares jolting her awake every other hour or so. And if not nightmares, then it was the restless movements of her father in his office: brewing coffee all hours of the night and into the morning, the printer frantically going, going, going, the constant striking of keys.

But she'd sleep well tonight; that much was certain. The thought of crawling under her thick comforter and laying this wretched day to rest was a drug all its own, oozing through her ever so gently like warm ambrosia.

"Your dad throw his back out again?"

Tea blinked. "What do you—?" Then came the unmistakeable rattle of pills, and the elixir was suddenly hit by an arctic blast. "Oh, right. Those."

Somewhere behind her, Tristan had the prescription bottle in his hand. She didn't turn around to look, knowing that would make it harder to play it off as nothing. Yugi and Joey stared at her, abandoning the game entirely for the time being.

"He's been having aches again," she lied, ducking her head slightly so that any guilt in her eyes was hidden behind her bangs, "and he needs to keep looking for work, so I refilled his prescription after school let out."

Again, the rattle of pills behind her head, but a bit harder this time. "There, uh … seems to be some missing."

"I poured out a few. It'd be so easy for him to get hooked. Especially now … he's been so sad these days …" **_Oh, wow, and the Oscar goes to ..._**

A moment of sympathetic silence, followed by the sound of Tristan putting the bottle back where it belonged and pulling out her massive binder. Joey patted her knee a few times while Yugi tsk-tsked his concern.

_**Lie. Accomplished.  
><strong>_

_Shut up, you._

"I still can't believe Kaiba fired him," Yugi said for about the millionth time since said firing, "over a _typo_."

She grimaced inwardly, but kept her face straight. "I'd expect nothing less."

The three of them laughed a bit too hard at that. Tristan fumbled with her binder, scattering notebook papers all over the floor, which he quickly went to work gathering up.

_Ten more minutes, plead a headache, and get home to bed._

_**Agreed.**  
><em>

"He's such an asshole," Joey remarked from behind his cards. "But I wouldn't mind crashing that bachelor party he's been talking up."

Yugi's eyes grew wide with incredulity. "He's getting _married_?"

"Not _him_, it's one of his rich-bitch partners. Kaiba's throwing him a party at his place. And there's gonna be a stripper apparently."

Several cards fell from Yugi's hands. Tristan's jaw dropped. Tea shut her eyes, silently cursing Kaiba's name and his ability to mess with her without even having to be present.

"Yeah," he continued with a nod. "You believe that shit?"

"And he was just … talking about it in the middle of _study hall_?" Yugi asked, scandalized.

Joey shook his head. "Nah, man, it was weird. He _invited_ me."

"_What_?"

"Seriously! Then he said some shit about how I'd _appreciate_ it, on account of it being someone I know."

Tristan snorted, finally finding his voice. "Since when do you run around with strippers?"

"I know, I told him I don't …" His voice trailed off.

"What is it?" Tristan asked, setting Tea's bag down next to her.

"Someone I know … You … You don't think he meant …?"

Tea kept her eyes on the board. _Please don't look at me, please don't look at me, please don't_ –

Joey dug his cell phone out of his pant's pocket. He dialed a number and waited. The sound of ringing filled the room, amplified by the speaker phone button.

"_You rang?"_ said a smoky female voice they'd all recognize anywhere.

"What's this I hear about you being a stripper, Mai?" Joey blurted out.

"… _The fuck are _you_ on about?" _

Tea bit down on her tongue to stifle the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside. Mumbling something about curfew, she gathered up her bag and left for home just as Joey and Mai began to argue in earnest.

She boarded the subway and settled into a seat facing one of the windows, grateful that the car was mostly empty, save for a snoozing businessman and a much younger girl in headphones. She let the passing scenery hold her in a sleepy thrall. Her head lolled back and forth, her eyelids drooped ... Then she saw it.

The Kaiba Corps. building loomed in the not-nearly-enough distance amidst other skyscrapers of lesser stature, jutting forth in such a way that it seemed able to pierce the heavens. She felt her mouth twisting into a visible snarl. The girl a few seats away glanced at her curiously, and Tea turned her face away. Kaiba's voice, low and snide, echoed in her mind:

"_I suppose you've come to beg for leniency?"_

She fought against the memory, feeling the way it rankled the feral creature imprisoned inside, kicking its cage and poking it with a very sharp stick. But she was tired. So very tired of withholding, of clamping down, of fighting herself and losing. She gave in to that Thursday two months ago. The day after her father had been sacked. The day she'd come home from the restaurant to find him working his way through a bottle of wine, the kitchen table's surface littered with bills and half-filled applications that would soon be rejected.

The day that familiar, frightening chill had taken hold of her, frigid fury turning her into someone else for the time being, someone with more guts than sense.

The day she'd went, still in her waitress uniform, to Kaiba Corp. and spoken to the man himself.

"_No," she replied tonelessly.  
><em>

"_Then what have you come to beg for?"_

"_I'm not here to beg. I just want to know how you'll find someone else as qualified on such short notice."_

_He chuckled, eyes still glued to the computer screen on his desk. "You underestimate Kaiba Corps' desirability in the job market, Gardner. I haven't even officially put the word out that I need a new assistant, and I've got at least four people already angling for this position."_

"_Yeah, interns fresh out of college who'll see it as nothing more than a stepping stone to something better. My father wasn't going anywhere. He would have stuck by you. You could have trusted him."_

"_Trust is not the issue here. Competency is. He proved to be incompetent, therefore he was let go."_

"_Right, and him being related to me had nothing to do with that decision, I'm sure."_

"_Don't –"_

"_No, _you_ don't," she said, her voice soft but carrying an undercurrent of danger that could probably be felt all the way down the hall. "You were looking for any excuse to be rid of him once you found out I was his daughter, weren't you? If not that stupid typo, then maybe a spilled cup of coffee, or a forgotten memo."_

"_And why should I care about something as trivial as all that?"_

"_Because you're petty, Kaiba. You're a petty sadist who likes to burn the little worker ants with his big, expensive magnifying glass. So petty that my father's out of job, because of me. And not even because of _me_ personally, but because of who I know. Because I know Yugi. Do those stupid card games really mean so much to you? You may have founded a multimillion dollar corporation on the backs of those stupid games, but you're still just an angry nerd and a sore loser."_

_He leaned back in his desk chair, fully considering her for the first time since she'd barged into his office. "You really think so?"_

"_Yes. I really think so."_

_For a while he didn't say anything at all. He stared out the window, watching as the city's lights began to replace the glow of the setting sun.  
><em>

_Something awful was about to happen. She could feel it._

"_Do you know Pundari?"_

_Her eyes narrowed. An image of the twentysomething Indian man flashed through her mind's eye. "The one whose game you've been beta testing. What about him?"_

"_He's getting married in a few months."_

"_And?"_

"_I'll be throwing his bachelor party at my estate … Would you like to come?"_

_She blinked. _What on earth. _"What, your catering crew's short of servers or something? Don't let this uniform fool you, I don't plan to make a career out of busing tables."_

"_No, you're a dancer ... You _do_ still dance, don't you, Gardner?"_

_"Of what importance is that to you?"_

_"None whatsoever," he said coolly. "But it might matter a great deal to Pundari ..."  
><em>

_In a matter of seconds that seemed to drag on for entire centuries, the ugly truth of his words sank in. Her thoughts stopped coming in words as her rage deepened in a way she'd never thought possible. Bloody war zones filled her head; the angry clashing of bayonets, the blast of gunfire and the screams of women and children rang in her ears alongside the pounding of her own blood. The forces of Hell itself strained against the ever-weakening leash of her control, and it became too much to bear. She forced herself to concentrate on his words as he continued to talk, watching him like a pendulum hanging from a hypnotist's hand.  
><em>

"_ ... impossible for me to give your father his job back, but far be it from me to keep the –What did you call it? – Ah, yes, the 'little worker ant' from its just rewards. You want the money? It's there for the taking. So come. Show us what you've got. In a manner of speaking." _

_His smile was that of a playground bully delighted by his own cruelty. The ludicrous image of him shoving her into a sandbox came unbidden. And just like that, the spell was broken, and she was pulled back from the brink of murder. The cold reclaimed her, cradling her in its frigid arms. It was time to go.  
><em>

"_I appreciate your generous offer."_

_He blinked, betraying his surprise at her response. _

_She turned away. "I'll let you get back to work then. Sorry to have troubled you."_

_"So you'll think it over?" he called after her as she made for the doorway._

_Her hand rested on the knob. "Yes," she replied without looking back. "I will. I'll be thinking it over a lot. Goodbye."  
><em>

Whether it was because of the pills or the recollection of that day, when the demon within had fully roused itself, she gave it free rein. For a few moments, she and the serpent were one and the same, united in a lust for vengeance the likes of which she had never thought herself capable of. Until now. She watched the building recede into the distance, shrinking and shrinking until it was no more.

_**I don't care how long it takes. I don't care if it kills me. I'll see you paraded in chains before the people of Domino, your skyscraper burned in effigy, just like in the old days. I'll see you humiliated and disgraced, your empire toppled into ruins and dust. I'll make you beg for death, Seto Kaiba. I don't know how, but I'll do it. I'll do it.  
><strong>_

The wind went out of her sails, leaving her empty and numb. She dragged herself up from her seat as the train pulled to a stop. _Yeesh_, she thought bitterly as she began to walk the rest of the way home, _if declaring revenge takes that much out of you, how does one get up the energy to actually execute the whole thing? Glad I'll never find out._

Night had fully descended on Domino by the time Tea made it back. She reached out in the dark of the foyer to set her keys on the carved ebony table by the door. They hit the floor. The table was long gone.

_So he did get around to pawning it_, she remarked silently, scooping up her keys and continuing on her way. She passed through the den and made for the stairs. The glow of the patio lights drew her eye to the sliding door across the room. She opened it to find her father stretched out on one of the chaise lounges by the wrought-iron bar. His eyes opened slightly and focused on her as she slid the door shut behind her.

"Have a nice time?" he asked with groggy good humor.

"Mm-hmm," she replied, "we played cards. Watched some TV. It was nice."

"Mm. That's good. I like to see you happy. You know that, don't you? Happy, happy ..."

Her father's smile was a touch too wide and indulgent. His dark hair clung to the sweat on his forehead. His carefully pressed suit was in disarray, the necktie clumsily pulled askew. She realized he'd been drinking even before she finally took note of the half-empty bottle of vodka left out on the bar. It would be hilarious, the both of them faking sobriety for one another, going through the motions of father-daughter niceties.

It would be … If it weren't absolutely pathetic. How had it come to this?_ Look at us. We're like a Norman Rockwell painting of a father and daughter. Except the father's an unemployed drunk and the daughter hears voices._

A wave of revulsion washed over her like grime, too strong to be fully muted by the painkillers, which were wearing off anyway, damn it all. How long would it be before there wasn't anything of value left in the house to pawn? Before Dad's unemployment benefits ran out? Before her waitress gig wasn't enough to help keep them above water anymore? Before they were living check to check?

_I'll take a some days off school, say I'm sick, _she thought with grim determination. _I'll get all the extra hours I can handle. It won't be much, but it'll give you a head start until you find work. I won't fail you._

Then, just as she was about to say good night and retreat upstairs to the warm sanctuary of her bed, Keith Gardner said something that swept away the remnants of the drug-induced calm Tea had tried desperately to hold onto.

"Ye gods … You look more and more like Lillian everyday."

* * *

><p>Man, I've missed you guys something awful these last few weeks. Here I was raring to go, and I couldn't post a thing. But I'm back! And so long as nothing else happens to my computer ... Wait, let me shut up before I finish tempting Fate. Next chapter will be along shortly.<p> 


	4. Shed

_Disclaimer_: If I owned Yu-gi-Oh!, I'd have Tea, Mai, Serenity, Ishizu and, hell, even Rebecca go on a road trip that's a cross between _Thelma and Louise_ and Russ Meyer's _Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill_! ... Holy shit, I think I just got my next story! Unless someone else beats me to it ^^

**AN (IMPORTANT)**: I made some goofs in the second chapter! I had Tea driving, then taking the subway (_*insert facepalm*_). From here on out, she'll mostly be taking public transit: buses and subways only. There is no car. There never was a car. Move along.

Also, as was pointed out to me by browneyes730 , "mon cher" IS actually supposed to be "ma cherie", given that Tea is female. Thanks for catching that, browneyes! If you guys catch anything else, please don't hesitate to point it out in the comments. And keep those comments coming anyway: They feed my will to write, after all.

One more thing: I'd like to apologize in advance for the mapquesting portion of this chapter: I'm shit with directions and by extension worldbuilding. It really doesn't help that "Domino City" has no real geography to speak of.

'Kay, let's move on, shall we?

* * *

><p><em><strong>Shed<strong>_

* * *

><p>Tea sat down on one of the bar stools before her knees could give out from under her. The name filled the night like the distant rumble of a thunderstorm.<p>

_Lillian. Lillian. Lillian._

Mr. Gardner, as a rule, didn't talk about his wife unless inquiring minds wanted to know. And whenever they did, he would only to say that she had left him and his daughter a long time ago, and that he'd really rather not say anything more on such a painful subject, if you don't mind. He didn't have any pictures of her on the walls of the house; nor were there any tucked away in the photo albums that Tea sometimes found herself flipping through compulsively.

Yet here he was: talking about her. Reminiscing, even, if the faraway look on his face was anything to go by. Granted, he was also drunk, which had no doubt loosened his tongue quite a bit. His hand gestured unsteadily in the her general direction.

"Right down to those little twitches … you get in your cheek sometimes. That's Lillian, all the way."

"Really?" she replied as noncommittally as she could manage.

"Mmm-hmm," he murmured.

_I may never get this chance again ..._ "I don't remember much about her," she said with a softness that belied the hawk-like gaze she leveled at him through the dim patio lights. "I must have very young when she left ..."

His eyes were shut against the cool night breeze. "Yes, very young. Too young to remember much of ... well, anything, really."

_**Liar …**__**  
><strong>_

"You must have been about ... five or so ..."

**_LIAR. You were twelve. _**

"Maybe younger."**_  
><em>**

**_You were twelve, and he KNOWS it._**

Tea blinked back tears. _He wouldn't lie. Why would he lie?_

**_Why indeed? Why don't you ask HIM?  
><em>**

"Blue and gold …"

"Pardon?"

A wistful smile stretched across his face. "They were her colors. Like a coat of arms. She wore 'em everywhere."

It was a tiny detail, hardly significant when held up against the massive, gaping holes that filled her memory. Nonetheless it unlocked something held deep within Tea, conjuring in her mind's eye the image of a woman that was at once brand-new and immediately familiar. Hair brown like hers, but striated here and there with auburn; the luxuriant mass pulled back, half up in a loose twist, the rest cascading down her back in a riot of tousled waves. Captivating sapphire eyes set off by a storybook-fair complexion. Features that were strong and seemingly ageless despite the ripe maturity that permeated her whole being. Tall and just this side of voluptuous, her curves offset by lean muscle and tastefully hinted at by a royal blue cheongsam brocaded with golden foliage.

The image gave way to a deeper impression as various sensory details began to emerge from the void of her past, providing dimension and depth to the image that now dominated her mind as never before. The scent of Chanel mixed with a kind of minty smoke; a low, throaty voice humming "St Louis Blues" and reading aloud from _Arabian Nights_; a gentle but strong hand sweeping the hair from Tea's face, the nails red and well-tended and filed to rounded point; a laugh that invited one to join, full and rich and not the least bit restrained or ladylike.

Tears of awe and painful recognition rolled down Tea's face as that laughter rang in her head.

_Mother_. _Lillian. Lillian Gardner._

Her father, as unaware of her at this point as she was of him, mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like "My sweet Lilith ..."

Her focus was wrenched back to the present. "Huh?"

He finally succumbed to the vodka. In a matter of moments he was passed out in the chaise lounge. Tea crept towards him and laid her fingers across his forehead to sweep the hair off his face. He turned in the chair away from her touch and grumbled in his sleep.

_I "came to" when I was twelve, close to my thirteenth birthday, _she silently admitted to him._ I barely remember anything before then, just vague stretches that don't really add up. And whenever I try to think of Mom, I don't even get that much. That's a whole childhood more or less smudged from my memory, Dad. Do you know? _

_Do you care?_

His answer was a loud snore that sounded like a pig rutting in mud. She chuckled in spite of her tears and wiped at her face. The sheer weight of her own weariness threatened to drop her where she stood. She placed a kiss on the top of her dad's head, went back into the the house and started up the stairs, pulling off her school uniform as she did.

_**He was lying. You know he was lying.  
><strong>_

_Maybe you're the liar_, she countered as she finished disrobing in the darkness of her bedroom. _How can I trust you?_

**_Go to sleep. And quit talking to yourself._**

_I'm not! We're not the same, you and I. You're just a figment of my imagination, a delusion -  
><em>

_**Right, because crazy people are able to TELL when they're crazy, _**te ragazza idiota***_. Good fucking night. **  
><em>

She dropped her clothes on the floor by her bed, then crawled under her comforter, too weary to deal with pajamas or a shower. At long last, she surrendered to the tidal wave of exhaustion that had plagued her for most of the day and was promptly pulled into the undertow of a sleep so deep that she later wondered how she managed to dream at all.

But she did dream.

_She was eleven, scrawny and bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, practically vibrating with a barely contained energy. Mother was with her, graceful and casually cosmopolitan in a cobalt tunic and black cigarrette pants; gold bangles circled her slender wrists and gold hoops gleamed in her ears. The two were in a department store of some kind. Lush, jewel-toned fabrics pulled the young girl's gaze hither and yonder as the towering brunette by her side looked on in amusement. _

"_I want this! No, wait, this! Oh, can I have them both, please, please, please?"_

_The woman laughed heartily as her daughter tugged at her hand. "Of course you can." _

"_But won't Daddy be mad?"_

_A tiny, tell-tale tic in her mother's right cheek, unnoticed by the little girl, caught her eye. "You leave Daddy to me, baby doll. Get whatever you'd like. You've earned it."_

"_Oh, oh, then can we go to __Lulu's__ after?"_

"_You're reading my mind, kid. It's been a while since we've visited. Besides, you could use the practice."_

_Tea poked her lip out comically, and Lillian laughed again. The two made for one of the shop's dressing rooms. Tea entered with her armful of clothes, while her mother stayed on the other side of the curtain. _

_"'I walk'?" Lillian asked through the silken barrier.  
><em>

_"En español?" Tea asked back as she wriggled out of her jeans and sweater._

_"Italiano."  
><em>

_"Cammino?"_

_"'You walk?'"_

_The girl pulled on one of the dresses, a bright green one that didn't look too promising."Si cammina?"  
><em>

_"_Molto buona**_. 'We walk together'?"  
><em>

_"Camminiamo ... insieme?"_

_"_Sì_, perfetto."_

_She stepped out in the green, ruffled dress. Mother and daughter regarded it for a silent moment before shaking their heads in unison. _

_"Ugh, non è nemmeno vicino***," Tea huffed before retreating back into the dressing room. She heard Mom chuckling on the outside._

_"You've been practicing."_

_The girl stuck her head out of the curtain, her face lit up with a prideful grin. "Tuttavia posso dire?*4"_

_"Now you're just showing off."  
><em>

_Giggling, Tea went back inside. She continued to converse in Italian while changing clothes.  
><em>

_Some time later the two left the store with their shopping bags and walked down a sloping, crowded street that was familiar somehow ...  
><em>

The dream collapsed without warning, so quickly that it jarred her awake. She pushed the hair out of her face and blinked up into the blue-tinged gloom that filtered through the blinds of her window. Yesterday's crushing fatigue was gone, and in its place was a curious supra vitality, an unexpected surge of determination and fear that electrified her blood.

Was it real? Could it be real?

_Leave it alone, _a part of her protested hysterically, _leave it alone, you haven't got the time to be dealing with this! Think of Dad. You have to get more shifts. You have laundry to do. You have extra credit assignments to finish. You have ... You have ...  
><em>

An even bigger, more insistent part of her roared: **_You've lived with ignorance for too long. See where this leads._**

Before she could talk herself down, Tea stood up and started to head for her father's office, but stopped when she heard the unmistakeable sound of him working in there. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was a little past five AM. How was he up already? In any case, he'd be there for a while.

After a moment of deliberation, she laid out a fresh uniform on her bed and went into her bathroom to shower. The next bus headed towards the nearest subway station was due at the corner in another half-hour or so.

* * *

><p>Her sneakers hitting the ground were louder than they should have been in the empty courtyard. Ignoring this meaningless observation, Tea climbed the front steps of Domino High and entered school's the main hall, passing only a janitor as she walked. The computer room on the first floor was empty, as she knew it would be this early in the morning. Swiping her school ID over the scanner by the door, she entered and took the first computer in the aisle to her left. She pulled up a map of Domino on Internet.<p>

She thought back to the dream ... memory ... whatever it was. They'd been in a department store, one she hadn't yet recognized. But assuming they were even still in Domino at the time and if the upscale nature of the place was anything to go by, it had to be at or near Domino's fashion district, Haiendo*5. She found it on the map, close to where uptown gradually became midtown.

She closed her eyes and recalled the end of the dream, when she and her mother walked out of the store together. The details were slow to return, but she was reasonably sure that it was the right place. They definitely hadn't been in a mall, given the relative intimacy of the store and the fact that they had gone directly from it to the street. They hadn't seemed to be heading for the subway, so "Lulu" must be somewhere nearby. Provided he or she hadn't picked up and moved in the six years since.

_There wouldn't be any houses near enough there for us to walk, would there? Maybe Lulu lives in an apartment?_

Unbidden, her mother's words came back to her. _"You could use the practice"_, she'd said. Practice ...

Following a hunch, she widened the net of her search to the areas on the outskirts of Haiendo. To the north and south of it were mostly office buildings. To the east, things began to get weird. A tingle of recognition at the street names urged her on, though she couldn't yet fully articulate why. She typed "Lu" into the search engine and looked at the results, of which there was only three. One was a car repair shop, auto-corrected to read "Lou's". The second was a cigar shoppe called "Lucky Strike". The last result set off alarm bells in her head. _That must be it, then._

_"Luanna's"_. It was a pub on Pinker Street in…_ No way_.

Pinker Street was deep in Zainin *6. Known more infamously as "Player's Row"_._

Player's Row, located close to the heart of the sprawling city of Domino, was essentially a vice district for the fortune-hunting set: gamblers, hustlers, gold-diggers and anyone else looking to change their luck in the shadiest ways possible. People disappeared on The Row, swallowed up by the two addictions it catered to: games and drugs. Over the years, she'd heard tell of sex being another big draw, of the rumored flesh trade that flourished behind the already-sordid scenes, on a whole other level from the heavily painted hookers who plied the streets.

The police cruised its streets from time to time in order to preserve the illusion of law enforcement, but that's all it was: an illusion, purely for show. Provided no one was shot dead in the streets - a rare, but possible occurrence - the police didn't do much to curtail the illicit activities therein beyond harassing a streetwalker now and again. The Row had wealthy patrons. Wealthy enough to shut up the cops. Cops who may well have been getting a cut of the profits for their relative non-involvement ...

Tea sat back in her chair, her hand still on the mouse.

_Why on earth would Mom take me there_? she wondered._ And what exactly does an eleven-year-old "practice" in a pub on The Row?_

A jovial voice from over her shoulder made her jump. "Catching the worm, early bird?"_  
><em>

* * *

><p>I know, I know, artificial cliffhangers like that aren't the best way to end a chapter. It's a habit I'm looking to break. Anywho, keep those reviews coming. I'm like a fanfic Tinkerbell: I need to know you believe, otherwise you'll die ... I'LL DIE. Me. That's what I meant. Yeah.<p>

* _"You idiot girl."_

** _"Very good."_

*** _"Ugh, not even close!"_

*4 _"However can you tell?"_

_*5 "High End" (_Hey, you try coming up with clever names for a place called Domino!_)_

_*6 "Sinner" _(Thank go(d)(d)(less) for Google Translate!)_  
><em>


	5. Slither

_Disclaimer_: If I owned Yu-gi-Oh! (which we've more than established that I don't), I'd switch things around just for the fuck of it. For example: Joey would be the blind, bedridden sibling and Serenity the street-fighting, Brooklyn-accent-wielding sibling. Huh? Doesn't that sound more interesting? I'd watch that. I'd watch the hell out of that.

**AN**: Short chap this time, mostly consisting of two scenes, but don't be fooled: The action (as well as that M rating) is about to ramp up. Plus the next chapter is almost entirely written already, so there shouldn't be too much of a wait for the next update.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Slither<em>**

* * *

><p>Despite having been ambushed, Tea reflexively hit the print icon at the top of the screen. <em>Now or never.<em>

"I could have sworn you heard me come in -"

"It's fine," she managed over the erratic beat of her pulse. She closed the browser.

"Really, I didn't mean to scare y-"

Tea held up her hand, stopping the young man's apologies.

"_Bakura_. It's fine. Really." She took a deep breath and cracked a shaky smile. "You're here pretty early."

"Oh, these days I'm always here this time of morning," he said lightly, claiming the seat next to her. "I'm replacing my old desktop, and the new one won't be in for a while. I have a manuscript to work on, so I figured I'd shlepp out here, rather than use some stupid cafe's wifi. Otherwise it wouldn't get done."

"Oh? I've never known you to write. Apart from the school newspaper."

"You haven't known me do a lot of things," he said with an almost lascivious grin. "That doesn't mean I don't do them."

Tea threw her head back and laughed. It was the first real laugh she'd had in a long while. She ground to a tremulous halt, realizing how similar her own laughter was to her mother's. Tears sprang to her eyes, and in almost the same instant, Bakura's hand was on her shoulder.

"What happened? Are you alright?"

"Y-yes! No. Oh, I don't know anymore," she said miserably, shielding her face with her hands. "I'm sorry, things have been so weird lately ... "

"With Kaiba, you mean?"

Her head whipped up from her hand. "What?"

"He's been bothering you lately, hasn't he? Keeps rubbing in that stuff about your dad?"

The girl sighed and dropped her head back into her hands, somewhat relieved to have someone other than the gang to talk to about it, but a bit peeved about having to talk about it so early in the morning. "Yes. He does. I'm not sure what he stands to gain from being such a jerk, though."

"Neither does he, apparently. I asked him about it the other day after your little showdown in the library, and he told me to mind my own business"

She looked over at him incredulously. He knew about the library incident?

"Not that he would've spilled his guts anyway," he continued, "but he seems unusually defensive when _you_ happen to be the topic under discussion ..."

"You talked to him? You guys are _friends_?"

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," he said with a delicate shrug. "He's too superior for something like friendship. We ... understand each other, is all."

"Yeah." She almost winced at the bitterness in her own voice. "You rich folks have a lot in common."

The pale-haired teen chuckled softly, taking her unexpected jab in stride. "I've never known him to stay so focused on one person though. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a thing for you."

Tea scoffed. "Nonsense. He just likes to annoy me." _Plus I barged into his office and called him a sore loser. That might have had something to do with it, what do you think , Bakura?_

"So make him stop." As though it were the simplest thing in the world.

She rose from her chair and slipped her bag back over her shoulder. "I'd have better luck stopping an avalanche. I can't control what he does."

"You control more than you think, Tea."

_**What'd I tell ya?**_ "You sound so certain."

"Oh, I am." He leaned back in his chair and looked her over as she walked over to the printer. "I've always wondered why you play the lamb when you have it in you to be a lion."

Tea plucked the papers from the printer and walked towards the door. _What does he know about what I've got in me? _Could he read in her eyes that she wasn't quite right, that it took a monumental effort not to give in to whatever it was that lurked in her dark side? She shook off her own questions with an effort and turned back to face him, conjuring her plastic smile as she did.

"Who knows? Maybe I'll surprise you one of these days with my roar."

Bakura smirked in a way that made it obvious he was only humoring her. "I look forward to hearing it."

Their eyes locked for the briefest of moments before she stepped out into the hallway, letting the door bang shut in her wake. She made a mental note to watch what she said around Bakura from now on. She considered the print-out in her hand. Then folded the pages carefully and stuck them down into her bag.

_**Coward**._

_There's this thing called truancy you might have heard of -_

_**COWARD.**  
><em>

Ignoring the taunt, she checked the time on her cell. Another hour before school started. She bounced on the balls of her feet as a familiar restlessness began to take hold of her. The urge to dance hadn't come in a while, and even when it had, she'd been too preoccupied with work or school to give it free reign, save for a few steps in the morning to wake herself up.

She looked around. The hall was empty in the pale morning light coming through the long windows that stretched down the pathway. A janitor might happen along. Perhaps some other early risers would as well ...

_Oh, why the hell not?_ she thought recklessly. She dropped her bag by the wall, pulled off her pink uniform jacket and began to stretch. The simple movements warmed her muscles like a hot bath. _Mmm ..._

Returning to her bag, she plucked out her mp3 player and clipped the headphones to her ears. She turned the device on and scrolled through the track listing until she found Soho's "Hot Music". The house beats infected her, pulling at her like marionette strings. It was as though she hadn't gone months without going into a real routine, as though her body remembered what she herself had nearly forgotten. Light as the air itself, she spun and slid up and down the hall, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground as she wove together tap, go-go and some of the things she'd seen Rita Hayworth do in _Affair In Trinidad_. A goofy, contented smile stretched across her face. Oh, how she'd missed this ...

_Jump!_ cried the music. Carried by the renewed joy of the dance and the strength it awakened within, she did.

The next thing she knew, her foot made contact with the windowsill just long enough to propel her several feet in the opposite direction, toward a bank of lockers. She repeated the move with her other foot and bounced off one of the metal doors with a clang. The sound of_ whoosh_ filled her ears. It was only when she was turning end-over-end in mid-air that it occurred to her:

_I was never taught to do this._

The realization doused her in ice-water, causing her reflexes to fail her. She fell flat on her back and groaned. Her headphones flew off her head.

"_Holy shit_."

Tea opened her eyes against the pain. A pimply freshman stared at her from his locker, his jaw dropped so low she was surprised it hadn't actually hit the floor like she had. Though her body protested, she gathered up her stuff and gingerly speed-walked past the spellbound kid, avoiding eye contact as she did. No doubt they were both thinking the same thing.

_Where did THAT come from?  
><em>

* * *

><p>I'm not gonna lie: Bakura's a little bit of a self-insert character, a stand-in for yours truly. The dick-ish, omnisexual writer bit is a dead giveaway, I know.<p>

(Also anyone who hasn't heard "Hot Music" by SOHO should go to YouTube and find it. RIGHT. NOW.)_  
><em>


	6. Access

_Disclaimer_: If I owned Yu-gi-Oh! (which I FUCKING DON'T WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING YOU PARANOID FUCK), I'd essentially make it an anime version of _Skins_. Bakura would be Cook, Ishizu would be Jal, Seto would be Tony (DUH) ... I'm not sure who gets to be Effy, but I know for damn sure that Serenity has to be Cassie.

**AN**: I've been remiss in leaving Kaiba out of the narrative, I know ...

... So guess who's decided to drop in!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Access*<strong>_

* * *

><p>The sunlit courtyard was crawling with students when Seto Kaiba arrived at Domino High. Trays of half-eaten, sub-par food were piling up in the garbage cans between the sparse outdoor tables; a game of Frisbee was in progress near the front gate; several burn-outs were sneaking smokes beneath the trees that lined the west-facing wall.<p>

_Must be feeding time at the zoo._ The thought of muscling down the cafeteria's slop was stomach-turning. Seto Kaiba strode towards the stone steps of the school's entrance, ignoring the curious glances of his fellow classmates. He was rarely in school these days, preferring instead to have his assignments and lecture notes delivered by his teachers (usually with not-so-subtle attempts to get him to donate a new wing or two to the school). Still, he liked to drop in from time to time.

Like today, for instance. For no particular reason. None at all.

"Fancy seeing you here, Kaiba!"

The teenage billionaire rolled his eyes heavenward at the sound of the familiar English voice. He turned to see the white-haired imp perched on one of the steps, a half-eaten sandwich in hand. "Bakura, as I live and breathe. Always a pleasure."

"You're a terrible liar, but I'm flattered nonetheless," Bakura said with an indulgent grin. "So what are your plans for the girl today, hmm?"

_Well, that didn't take long. _"I don't know what you mean."

Bakura tossed the remnants of his lunch over his shoulder, missing the garbage can entirely, though he probably hadn't been aiming for it anyway. "Oh, don't get cagey with me _now_, it was just starting to get good. Come on, what's next? Poke fun at her dad some more? No, you've already played _that_ record to bloody pieces. Maybe corner her someplace secluded and _loom_ at her? How else can you terrorize the poor girl? Go on, _wow me_."

Kaiba scoffed and made for the entrance. "Save the flights of fancy for those bodice-rippers you're so fond of churning out."

Bakura's hand snaked out and shut the door just as he was pulling it open. The boy was at his side now, his lazy repose vanished and replaced by a grave seriousness that was peculiar for the puckish Brit.

"Fair warning, alright? You should let up while you can."

He sounded so earnest that Kaiba found himself abandoning all pretense of sarcasm for the moment. "Why?"

"Have you ever looked at her? I mean, _really_ looked at her?"

Kaiba rolled his eyes again. "I'm a hetero male, so yes, obviously -"

"Her _eyes_, you tosser. Have you looked her in the eye? Yes? Then you know what I'm talking about! You can't push someone like that too far. She's a fragile thing. She'll only bend so far until she breaks."

Unbidden, the scene in the library came back to mind. He recalled that inexplicable _something_ in her eyes, gone almost as soon as it had appeared, but giving him pause nonetheless before disappearing behind that blank mask. He shook off the memory. For all Gardner's unforeseen depths, he wasn't afraid of her, not by a long shot, and all Bakura's hand-wringing wouldn't make him afraid.

"Maybe 'breaking her' is just what I intend to do," he said lightly. "I think that would be rather amusing, don't you?"

The other boy pulled his hand away slowly and regarded Kaiba with spellbound bemusement. "What could she _possibly_ have done to you to make that seem like a reasonable course of action?"

Kaiba's limited patience gave out. "Mind your business, _Ryou_, and I'll mind mine." With that he swept into the building, leaving the young writer in his dust.

Still, he had to acknowledge that it was a fair question. More than fair. What _had_ she really done, beyond aiming a few admittedly well-chosen words at him? Why was he going out of his way to be such a colossal dick to that dreary little thing? It wasn't merely that she had called him out on it.

No. It was that she had done so _without_ descending into a wailing puddle of feminine hysteria at his feet. She hadn't even come close, despite Bakura's claims to her fragility. She had done just what he had considered her to be fundamentally incapable of: _the unexpected_.

_Where the hell's that locker of mine? _he thought, only to stumble upon it a few seconds later when he reached the second floor. He immediately went to work spinning the dial every which way as he tried to remember the combination, which he somehow hadn't had the presence of mind to write down. As he grappled with the infuriating device, his mind drifted back to Gardner.

She'd been quite impressive that day in his office. Even a bit intimidating, despite her ridiculous uniform. Clearly on fire with rage, but carrying herself with the frosty composure of a dowager, she'd seemed a concentrated force of nature.

Almost.

There had clearly been _something_ she wasn't giving in to. Something Kaiba hadn't instilled himself, but had provoked nonetheless. Something held tightly in check that wasn't as simple as anger, though there was surely that, and in spades. Something that warranted the unexpected self-control, the ice-queen demeanor that was so unlike her. Something that was foreign and inaccessible, maybe even to herself.

Trying the lock again, he swore under his breath when it failed to yield. _Speaking of inaccessible ..._

His grip on the lock loosened as a blinding flashbulb of insight went off in his head. Perhaps that's what intrigued him so: He wanted to know what was behind that curiously blank mask, and _why he couldn't access it_. He'd clearly pissed her off and monopolized her attention, what with firing her father and all, but there was still that part of her he couldn't reach, couldn't even _fathom_.

He was no stranger to pushing people's buttons, to pulling their strings like a puppeteer; it came with the turf, being a high-rolling CEO and all. With very little effort, he could make anyone do just about anything. He could read people like books with huge print and broken spines, crack into their jealously guarded safes with the ease of a practiced thief and use what he found there against them.

So why not her?

_"Show us what you've got"_ he had dared her that day in his office. Though he hadn't known it at the time, Kaiba realized then that he'd been quite serious._ Show me what you've got, Gardner. I want to know what you're made of. _What he intended to do once he knew he was no longer certain, but he wanted to know. Of that much he was certain, at least.

After a few more tries, he finally found the correct combination. He slid the lock off the door, pulled it open and promptly realized that the textbook he'd need for his next class would be in the classroom itself. Rolling his eyes for what seemed like the umpteenth time since he'd woken up that morning, he shut the door and leaned against it. The lunch period had drawn to its close; the bell must have rung while he wasn't paying attention. Students were beginning to flood the halls, one set leaving class for lunch while another went from lunch back to class.

He located his literature class on the third floor with much more ease than he'd had with his confounded locker. The room was empty except for the teacher, seated at her desk, and one student which he identified distantly as female by the uniform. The two were deep in discussion, the teacher unaware of him despite the fact that he was well within her peripheral vision; the coed was turned fully away from him, so he couldn't see her face. He gave them no more than a cursory glance at first, but found himself looking back once, twice, then a final time, as several key details about the coed jumped out at him.

Brown hair, long legs, ratty gray-green tote. He smirked. _Three guesses who._

Discreetly, he took a seat in the front row, opened up the textbook and pretended to read it … All the while wondering how he could have forgotten that he shared a class with Gardner? True, he'd been having more and more of his assignments delivered lately, he barely had to time to leave the office these days, but -

"Are you _sure_ it won't affect my grade?" The distress in the girl's voice was restrained, but palpable.

The teacher nodded reassuringly. "So long as you either follow along online or turn in your work by hand at the end of the day, you'll be able to keep your marks high. I'm so sorry you won't be joining us, we're about to go into the fascinating unit -"

The girl breathed a sigh of relief as she rummaged through her curiously beat-up tote bag. "Good, good ... And, ah ... who would I talk to about the assisted lunch?"

_Pinching daddy's pennies already, Gardner? Such a prudent child._ "The main office tends to those kinds of things," he spoke up rather helpfully.

The sound of his voice seemed to act just like a hard slap across the backside. The girl stiffened in silent indignation, her entire demeanor snapping to attention in a way that was immensely gratifying to him. "Thank you, Kaiba."

"Oh!" The teacher simpered. "Why, Mr. Kaiba, what a pleasure to see you! You're just in time for our unit on Mérimée's _Carmen_!"

"How fortunate."

The girl quietly thanked the teacher and bade her farewell. She shouldered her bag and turned to leave. Though he kept his face straight, Kaiba cringed inwardly as she did.

Her face, framed by flyaway wisps of brown hair that escaped the tight knot at the nape of her neck, was taut and pale and so visibly weary that she seemed to have aged several decades. The schoolmarm hairdo was positively dowdy; both her skirt and jacket were rumpled. Her tennis shoes seemed on the verge of falling apart. There was no denying it: the girl looked a complete and utter mess. She looked unhinged. She looked ...

_Pathetic._

As though he had spoken this observation aloud, the girl's eyes met his, and he could swear that quite a bit of fight still gleamed in the depths of her gaze. The impression blotted out the battered tote, the unfortunate hair, and everything else that had been glaringly obvious just a second ago.

All he saw in that moment were her eyes, remarkable not merely for their color, which mimicked the blue of the Caribbean sea, but for the fact that they telegraphed murder and mayhem so effortlessly despite the near-bovine passivity that permeated the rest of her. That inexplicable _something_ that he'd glimpsed that day in the library flashed out at him, and he was well and truly caught by it.

_I wonder if ..._

But then it was gone, as though it had never been. She dropped her gaze and shuffled out of the door, effectively admitting defeat without a word spoken. Disappointment coalesced into contempt. He returned to his book, resisting the sudden and inexplicable urge to spit.

_So much for that._

* * *

><p>The bullet train wasn't the most relaxing setting, to be sure, but Tea dozed off in her seat anyway. She drifted into that familiar sub-space between sleep and wakefulness and found herself<p>

_in an obstacle course. There was no other name for it, really. It was outdoors, just off the path of a park, a wasteland of concrete walls, steep dips and metal railings. She was nine, scrappy and lean in her overalls. Her eyes blazed with tears of frustration. "I can't DO it -"_

_"Yes, you can."_

_"I can't -"_

_"Yes. You can. Try it again, this time without bending your knees. Keep your body straight. I'll meet you down in the grass."_

_The woman didn't raise her voice, but the note of command was not to be denied. She watched her with envy, marveling at the way she conquered the course before her._

_Tea inhaled, shoring up her courage, the afterimage of her movements replaying in front of her. This time was different, this time she __**could**__ do it, just as had Mama said. She vaulted over the walls, crawling like a cat over the rails, devoured the various obstacles until she didn't even need to see them anymore, merely consume them. They were nothing. The rush of the wind in her ears and the sheer exhilaration of such dangerous movement were all that was left. She rolled down the grass and sprung up to stand a few feet from her taskmistress._

_The glowing pride on Lillian's face warmed her like Christmas morning. _

_"Good girl," she said, handing the girl a bottled water. "Now do the same thing, only this time I want you to kick me. Aim for my chest, like you're trying to knock the wind out of me."_

_"Really?"_

_"Really."_

_Silence hung heavy between them._

_"Can I finish my water first?"_

_Lillian's uproarious laughter rang out, so loud Tea wondered if all of Domino could hear._

* * *

><p>Hang tight, y'all, next chapter's on the way soon. And I know, I know, I'm dragging my ass in terms of getting the action rolling, but trust me: If I rushed myself, you'd hate me for it. TRUST ME ON THIS.<p>

* Also, in case you were wondering, the reason this chapter doesn't have a snake-themed title is because it's mostly dominated by Kaiba's POV. He doesn't have a talking snake complex to contend with, so it really wouldn't make sense.

Plus, I'm running out of snake-y words, so I gotta conserve.


	7. Unhinge

_Disclaimer_: *blows raspberry* YOU KNEW WHAT THIS WAS.

**AN**: I'll level with ya, I fucking _hate_ this chapter, it may well be some of my most hit and miss work thus far ... and yet I really can't think of any other story I've poured quite as much effort into as this.

In which the past begins to assert itself in earnest, Tea plunges deeper into psychotic denial and Seto makes a potentially fatal blunder ...

In short:** Shit's 'bout to get real**. Also, a wee bit of that M rating I promised kicks in here, folks, so be warned/titillated.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Unhinge*<br>_**

* * *

><p>Tea, hunkered down in the soothing chill of the walk-in freezer**, began to wondered if she was cursed.<p>

Given that one mishap after another plagued a shift that would have been only _mildly_ backbreaking otherwise, the theory wasn't particularly far-fetched. The milkshake machine had stopped working for no discernible reason; the drinks had to be blended by hand, a time-consuming process that was pissing off the already impatient customers. Someone had left a crate of beef out in the open all night, so both the kitchen and dish room reeked of spoiled meat. Quite a few of the other waitresses had called in sick or otherwise indisposed, so the place was woefully understaffed.

Light poured into the freezer. Another waitress - Gail - stood in the doorway, back lit by the harsh fluorescence. "Boss wants you on the tables."

Hoisting herself up from her squat with an ungainly grunt, Tea stepped back out into the heat of the kitchen. And, of course, for the _coup de grâce_, she had the luck of arriving in time for the lunch-hour rush. This guaranteed three things, only one of which was any good: A lot of tables to bus, a lot of tip money, and a _lot_ of businessmen who didn't know how to keep their hands or comments to themselves whenever a scantily clad waitress was within grabbing distance.

The tip money sweetened the pot, but didn't do much to disguise that said pot was full of shit.

_Cursed, indeed, _she scoffed silently as she maneuvered between the tables of the dining area. _Quit complaining! You've still got a roof over your head. Dad'll be back on his feet in no time. Just hold it together long enough for _him_ to get it together. Don't screw this u -  
><em>

A hand squeezed her bottom, effectively ending her inner diatribe. The clammy fingers slipped deftly up the back of her uniform's strategically tawdry skirt, snuffing out all thought of gratitude. It was approximately the sixth time this had happened that week. And for the sixth time, she ignored it, soldiering through the indignation by latching onto the mantra that carried her through any given workday: _Think of the money, think of the money, think of ..._

This proved to be a mistake, as the thought of money somehow leapt straight to Seto Kaiba and his pressed suits and the corinthean columns of his palatial mansion and the Persian rug in his office and that smirk of his which reeked of entitlement -

A spike of fury surged up from her solar plexus, slicing like a sword straight up through to her throat.

_**FUCK. THAT.**_

She whipped her head around to look the perpetrator in the eye. Her lips curled back from her teeth in a gruesome parody of a smile. Contemptuous rage surged through her, cold but electric, like her spine had been plugged into an industrial-grade generator.

_**I should break your fucking wrist, you cocksucker.  
><strong>_

What was going through her mind must have come through loud and clear on her face, because the man immediately dropped his hand and started to shrink back into the booth with his other colleagues_**.**_ He had the look of a lowly intern and probably wasn't more than a few years older than she was._**  
><strong>_

He cracked a nervous smile as she turned to face him fully. "Hey, hey, don't be like that, I was just - _Ah!_"

Lightning-quick, her hand darted out of its own accord. Her fingers gripped the maggot's wrist, effortlessly jerking him up and nearly out of the booth. Though he certainly outweighed her, she was able to unbalance him easily. Her fingers dug into his flesh, intuitively finding the right pressure points to make him ache down to his bones. A sadistic glee rose from within like a cloud of bats scared up from a dark cavern.

"_Did you want a refill, sir?_" she snarled in his face. A bit of her spittle flecked the man's glasses. She longed to dredge up all the saliva she possessed and watch it ooze down his face.

He paled visibly. "N-no ... thank you."

Her rage folded in upon itself as quickly as it had come, leaving only a familiar numbness in its place. She shoved him back into his seat and walked back to the kitchen, fully oblivious to the looks she was getting from both customers and employees. Colors and sounds dimmed to uninteresting pinpricks in her consciousness. A vague sense of nauseous regret prodded at her, but wouldn't stick.

"Gardner, take your break. Be back in twenty."

The manager's stern tone held the promise of a serious talking-to. It barely registered as she made for the back exit. She stepped out into the narrow alley that ran between the restaurant and the auto shop next door. She flopped against the side of the building, the brick scraping against the back of her blouse as she sank back down into a squat. The door creaked open a few moments later, but she didn't turn to see who had stepped out into the alley with her.

_Cursed. Indeed._

Tea reached into the pocket of her apron and extracted a single pill. _And what does that make you? _she asked of it. _A potion? A poison apple?_ She brought the pill up to her lips, preparing to swallow it dry, no longer caring what it was, no longer wanting to care about anything at all. It hurt to care, giving a damn was more trouble than it was worth. Steeling herself for the plunge back into mindless compliance, she took a deep breath.

This proved to be her undoing.

_What is that smell?_

It teased her nostrils, the familiarity of it rousing her from her zombie-like state. She inhaled again, and the simple gesture was like a shot in the arm. The pill slipped from her hand. She didn't reach after it, didn't even look to see where it landed.

Smoke. Minty smoke.

_Mom._

Her senses flew into overdrive. She sniffed the air like a bloodhound. Where was it coming from? _Please, god, don't let this be a delusion ... _

Gail walked over. "Boss man's pitching quite the fit in there, Gardner, what was that all ab - ?"

"Do you smell mint?"

"Huh?"

"Or smoke? Or smoke that smells like mint? Am I imagining it, or -?"

The other girl held up her hand. Between her fingers was a lit cigarette.

There are moments of epiphany so profound that they can move the human soul to stand in perfect awe, the reverence wrung forth from a well of emotion too deep to ever fully describe in words. For some it's seeing Michelangelo's _David_. For others its the pyramids of Giza. For many, it's the birth of a child.

But for Tea Gardner, it was that cigarette in Gail's hand.

__That's the smell that mixed with her perfume._ __Menthol. That's what it was. Mom smoked menthols. It used to drive Dad nuts ...  
><em>

"You alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright. Could ... could I bum one of those off you?" The words sounded so peculiar. A smoker's words emerging from the lips of someone who didn't even burn incense, let alone tobacco.

Gail handed one over. Tea took it in her fingers and ran it under her nose, unaware of the odd looks her co-worker was giving her. She inhaled its scent as though it were a pricey cigar and she a connoisseur of such vices.

The bolts were shot, and the floodgate of memory reopened within her. Laughter, full and rich, echoed back through the abyss of lost time. She heard the swish of fabric, saw a blue scarf whipping in the wind.

_She was eleven, riding in the passenger side of a car, fiddling with a Rubik's Cube. She still had on her leotard from dance class. "Dad said to tell you that smoking causes wrinkles," she said absentmindedly._

_Lillian grinned and blew another puff of smoke out the car window. "So does living. And I've no intention of quitting that either, so he might as well make up his mind to that."_

_"So I can have one?"_

_"Absolutely not. __You need a good set of pipes to keep doing all of your classes. And it's pretty hard to speak even _one_ language with a hole in your throat, let alone six or seven."_

_Her hands froze on the cube. "A hole in the throat?"_

_"That's right. You smoke enough of these and it rots a hole clean through your windpipe and turns your insides to ash. Then the cancer sets in and -"_

_Tea plucked the cigarette from Lillian's fingers and flung it out of the driver's side window. It was perhaps the first time she had ever caught her mother off-guard._

_"Your reflexes are getting positively catlike."_

_"I'm s-sorry, I -" Tea glanced back up guiltily only to find a look of complete and utter delight on the woman's face.  
><em>

_"I know, baby, I know. You did right by me. Mind you, I wouldn't suggest making a habit of snatching things out of my hand, but you did right." She ruffled the girl's hair and all was right with the world once more.  
><em>

"... you crying?"

Once again wrenched from the past by the insistent hand of the present, she recovered her senses as best she could. She gulped back the tears and wiped at her eyes.

"Yeah. I guess I am," she said, smiling insanely through her sniffles. She tucked the cigarette behind her ear for safekeeping. "How far would you say Zainin is from here?"

Gail stared at her, eyes widened slightly at the abrupt shift in topic. "Don't know, I've never been. Why?"

"No reason." The decision was made before she had even begun to process it. The sense of her will being put in motion without a trace of forethought or doubt was too irresistible.

_I'm coming to visit, Luanna. Whoever you are.  
><em>

The rush of euphoria which resulted from those deliciously reckless words carried her through the seemingly endless reprimand of her pock-faced manager. She was ordered to go home and "cool off", her shift cut short. She threw on her jacket and snatched her bag out of the employee cubbyhole. She made for a nearby subway station and took it towards the middle of the city. About fifteen minutes later, she stepped out of the car and into Zainin.

The directions in her hand proved to be a bit unneccesary. As soon as she emerged from the subway platform, her memory took over, guiding her feet more intuitively than the numbered instructions could. So she wandered at will, taking in the look of this part of Domino.

It was a weird mix of old and new, some buildings flaunting their age with brash pride and others proclaiming their slick youth with gleaming arrogance, all well-kept. Save for a series of boarding houses, a few pawn shops, and some apartment buildings, nothing much in the way of practicality met her eye: arcade, followed by restaurant, followed by liquor store, followed by "massage parlor", followed by night club, another night club ...

No, nothing but fun and games to be had in this part of town. A part of her, stirred by this obvious falsehood, wanted to see this place at night. See the neon flicker in the dark and the district's patrons get down to the _real_ business ...

She chased the thought away, not nearly fast enough to prevent the desire from taking root.

The further she descended into its depths, the more she noticed that her walk had changed. Her head-down shuffle gradually shifted into what could only be described as a somewhat militant strut. A hip-swinging, shoulder-rocking strut that spoke of a kind of standoffish moxie she shouldn't have been capable of. She held her head up, gaze alert to her surroundings and daring anyone to look back the wrong way.

_She was twelve with a long braid, almost but not yet tall enough at this age to stand nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with her mother. The striking pair walked the street in graceful tandem, shopping bags in hand.  
><em>

_"Keep your head up. Carry yourself like a wimp, and you'll get stepped on like one. Carry yourself as a monarch, and they'll have no choice but to crown you as one," Mother whispered.  
><em>

_She lifted her chin and straightened her spine. "If they know what's good for them!"_

The vision evaporated, leaving her strangely bereft. Her new - _old?_ - walk faltered, her strides growing shorter and more restrained. Even though this small snippet didn't unbalance her the way the others did, she found herself light-headed nonetheless.

_Who are you? _Tea asked of the bold young girl in her recollection. _You can't be me, so who are you? Where did you come from? Where did you go_?

She rounded a corner, still lost in thought. Then pulled up short as The Row began to unfold. The sloping street from last night's dream dipped not half a block before her. She looked to her right. None of the storefronts was that of a department store, but she knew she was in the right place. She kept walking, little starbursts of memory punctuating every half-step.

And then, almost before she was truly ready for it, _there it was_, nestled between a pizzaria and a vacant, gravel-filled lot. _Luanna's_.

She stepped inside. It was surprisingly easy. Almost, but not quite anticlimactic.

The smell of last night's tobacco lingered in the air, though the place had obviously been cleaned since then. The dark wood tables gleamed with polish, as did the bar.

At this bar was a gangly young man with a bright orange ponytail and heavily tattooed arms bared by a gray muscle shirt. He was scribbling something on a clipboard, likely taking inventory of the many gleaming shot glasses stacked next to him on the bar's smooth surface.

"We ain't open yet," he said without looking up as she finally, at long last, got her feet to carry her towards him. "You here for a job or what?"

"C-can I ... Could I speak to ... ?"

Her words trailed off into nothing. The timidity in her own voice, the timidity that was always there, made her vaguely nauseous, and she found herself wondering why. Why, when it was so intrinsic to her nature to be cautious, to be careful, to be ... a ...

**_... coward?_**

The word rankled. She stood a little straighter, lifted her head a little higher; the nausea receded just enough for her to get a grip.

"I need to see the owner," she said firmly. "It's important. Is she in?"

The boy looked up, fully aware of her presence. "Oh, Lu? Yeah, she's around here somewhere. Wait, hold on."

He swiveled around in his seat and proceeded to bellow into the back area.

"_LU_! HEY, _LUUUUUU_!"

A woman's voice boomed back in response, loud and crystal-clear: "_WHAT?_"

"THERE'S A GIRL TO SEE YOU!"

"AUDITION?"

The boy swiveled his head back around to looked Tea up and down, taking in her waitress uniform with some interest. "MAYBE?"

"WELL, DON'T YOU _KNOW_?"

"WELL, SHE DIDN'T _SAY_ -"

"WELL, FUCKING _ASK_ HER AND MAYBE GET HER _NAME_ WHILE YOU'RE AT IT!"

"OKAY," he called before turning back to Tea. "WHAT'S - Oh, shit, sorry. _What's_ you're name again?"

"Gardner." She braced herself for more yelling.

"GARDNER, SHE SAYS!"

"_WHAT_ GARDNER? WE DON'T HAVE A GARDEN!"

"NO, THAT'S HER _NAME_! _GARD-NER_!"

Silence more deafening than their traded shouts descended, followed by the unmistakeable click of a pair of heels. The curtain separating the bar from the back area was swept aside to reveal a busty, middle-aged redhead about half a foot shorter than Tea. She took two steps past the bar, stopped short in her gleaming stilettos and gaped incredulously at the sight of her, all the color draining from her rouged face.

"_Lil_ ... ?"

Tea's heart skipped several beats. She exhaled loudly, distantly relieved that she was still capable of breath.

"My god, Lil, is that _you_?" The woman plucked a pair of silver-framed glasses from her pocket, put them on and promptly corrected herself in a breathless cry of joy: "_Tea!_"

She ran over, not the least bit unsteady in those laquered ankle-breakers, and threw her arms around the shell-shocked teen. The familiar scent of smoke and ivory soap enveloped her, threatening to suck her down into another memory.

"Where have you _been_ all this time? You gave me such a start there, you look so much like your mom, I thought ... Well, never mind what I thought, _where've you been_?"

"With ... Dad," Tea said stupidly. "He said ... h-he told me ... that Mom left when I was five. But she didn't, did she?"

The woman pulled back slightly without relinquishing her hold. Her face clouded, not with outright suspicion, but with a wariness that clawed the girl's heart to ribbons. "You're saying ... you don't know?"

"Everything's ... a blur," she explained, shaking as a storm gathered within. "It was all a blank, until recently. I started getting bits and pieces ... Like this place. I remember this place. It looks almost the same as it did before. That stage ... it used to be over by the front window, didn't it?"

Lu nodded. "Until someone threw a brick through it 'cause they didn't like that night's act. Fucking ingrates," she threw in as an afterthought.

The past was coming back with a vengeance. So many details emerged from the void, fast, like they were being fired from a cannon. She spat them out as though she had memorized them by rote.

"Karaoke nights were Wednesdays and Sundays. You don't like pickles. You and Mom were friends from way back before she got married. I call you Aunty even though we're not related. There's more ... There's so much more I can - "

"You don't have to do that," Lu said, worry creasing her forehead, "I know you are who you say you are. You don't have to - "

Tea shook her head vigorously, panic clamping her chest into its steely grip. Chill sweat coated her hairline; her breath rasped brokenly through her nose. "I do! If - If I don't, it might fade away. I can't forget again! I can't lose it - !"

Lu, no doubt thinking she had long since "lost it", made calming gestures with her hands. "Okay, okay, just take it easy. What else do you remember? Tell me."

_Focus. Narrow it down, make it linear. Remember what brought you here!_

"We came here ... from shopping one day. She wanted me to have new clothes, and she didn't want Dad knowing about . You two had drinks _over there _and caught up because you were seeing each other less and less. And I ... I went over _here_ ..."

She drifted towards the green felt of the pool table closest to her. She stroked it as though it were a cherished pet, the feel of it under her fingers soothing her instantly. Lu and her orange-haired employee watched her with fascination. Tea nodded slowly. The air around her began to shimmer like a mirage.

She lifted a pool cue off the rack on the wall and turned back around. She looked on the table the way she'd seen Yugi look on a dueling arena: like a chessboard, a playground, a field waiting to be paced. In her mind she heard the _thwack_ of billiard balls, the gibes and howls of a spirited opponent, the crisp feel of money changing hands.

"... And play," she said. "I would play."

A warm hand came to rest on her shoulder. "You were one helluva shark," Lu said softly. "No one could beat you."

She dearly wanted to surrender to the warmth of Lu's hand. It was a special kind of warm, a kind of warm she hadn't known was lacking until she felt its prescence ... The warmth of good times and bad, of drinks knocked back at the end of a long week. Of barbs and advice and stories traded back and forth and back again until the laughter threatened to split their sides. Of tears brushed away and soft hands plaiting her hair. Of being spoiled rotten and meticulously disciplined in equal measure. Of knowing that even amongst thieves, she was looked after.

Of kin. Of communion.

_**Of family.**_

_... NO._

The cue slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor. She flung herself away from the treacherous warmth of Aunty Lulu's hand. "I shouldn't be here. Pretend I never was."

"Tea! Tea, honey, _no_, come back! _Tea_, wait -!"

But she was off and running out the door, heedless of the startled looks of the pedestrians out on the street. They hurled themselves out of her way. She plucked the cigarette from behind her ear and tossed it away like it was filth. This wasn't her world. It never would be. It was bad. She was bad. Worse than bad: _crazy_. It wasn't real. She wouldn't let it be real. She got out of line, that's all. She wouldn't make that mistake again. It wasn't real.

**_I want to go back. Take me back! _**

_Not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not  
><em>

_**IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. YOU CAN'T UNDO WHAT'S BEEN DONE.**_

_Not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real not real_

_..._

The week passed in a tidy haze of work and school and pill-popping. She tagged along with the gang to arcades and burger joints; she watched semi-attentively from the sidelines and picked at the food. She kept her eyes glued to the floor and her ears shut whenever Kaiba was around, which was more and more often now that he seemed to be back in school on a nearly but not quite full-time basis. She didn't speak to anyone unless spoken to. She didn't think about Luanna's pub or the memories it had disturbed. She smiled so much her jaw was sore.

Yugi, Tristan and Joey seemed to be watching her a lot more closely. They kept asking if she was okay. She kept reassuring them that she was. They kept watching her anyway. This pattern repeated ad infinitum.

She had enough pills to carry her through to Friday. That's all that mattered.

_..._

Thursday evening. "What on earth ... ?"

She smiled without looking up from her work. "Hi, Daddy."

The kitchen looked like it had been struck by a very methodical tornado. Everything was on the floor - stacks of folded dish towels, bottles of herbs and spices arranged by size, dishes and cutlery were grouped neatly together on the freshly scrubbed tile. Tea sat in the midst of this controlled chaos, legs folded.

"What happened?" Keith asked, tip-toeing through the maze of kitchenware.

"Just tidying. How was you day?"

The man squinted at the many bottles in front of his daughter. "Are you ... _alphabetizing_ the spice rack?"

"Yes. So how was your day?"

"Was it even _messy_ in here? Honey, you've kept this place spotless, why would you -?"

"It was clean, but not organized. How was your d - ?"

"I didn't find work, if that's what you mean." His tone, flat and hard, forestalled further discussion. He retreated to his office, and she returned to her tidying.

Once the kitchen had been sufficiently reorganized, she fixed a supper of roast duck legs, grilled potatoes and a leafy green salad. The delicious aroma of the thyme-strewn duck left her strangely cold. It didn't smell delicious to her. She realized she wasn't hungry. Her stomach was growling and her head was light and there was enough of the food for two nights of leftovers and the duck was sure to be delicious and filling and ... and she still wasn't hungry. The sense that it would taste about as good as sawdust was impossible to shake. She reached for a piece, but only after a moment of deliberation. She brought the duck up to her lips, but then put it back down.

It was no use.

**_When WAS the last time you ate, moron?  
><em>**

She extracted a pill from her pocket. _I'm not hungry._

**_EAT SOMETHING GOD DAMN IT! _****_  
><em>**

She placed it on her tongue. _I'm not hungry._

**_BUT I AM! LISTEN TO ME -_**

She swallowed. _I'm not hungry._

_..._

Friday afternoon, study hall. The cavernous room was far too bright and hot. Kaiba was directly in her line of sight, a safe enough distance away at his own table, yes, but still too close for Tea's comfort. Tristan and Joey wouldn't shut the hell up, whispering their concern every five minutes. She wanted to put her fist through something, whether a window or someone's face or Kaiba's face, she really wasn't sure, but something, anything, because it was far too hot and her stomach was empty and why was it so fucking hot in this -

For the millionth time: "Tea? Are you _sure_ you're - ?"

"_Yes. I'm fine._ _Thank you_."

Her voice, a barely audible snarl from between her clenched teeth, carried the sting of a sharp, decisive slap. Tristan retracted his hand from her shoulder, a deeply wounded look clouding his face. She couldn't bring herself to care. She couldn't even bring herself to _care_ that she didn't care. Not when everything was leaning so far to the left, and then the right, teetering like a drunk on a seesaw.

_Something is wrong. Something is so, so wrong right now, oh._

Little black spots kept flitting in front her eyes, distorting the essay she was drafting. She swept her hand back and forth, as if at a cloud of gnats. Tristan and Joey stared, so she made herself stop. The dots wouldn't go away. They multiplied, clouding her vision until she could barely see.

_Another memory? A big one, maybe? What? What IS it? What do you want from me?_

The same sense of being forcibly displaced overtook her, and she braced herself for another unwelcome visitation from the past. But what played out in her mind was no memory. It was something else entirely.

The sight of Seto Kaiba, nude and drenched in sweat, was proof enough of that.

_What. The. Hell ... ? _

But there was no stopping this, no warning, no waiting, just the world tilting too far to one side and her gut lurching like the floor had just dropped out from under her feet and the feeling of falling like a very heavy stone until ...

_He was lying on the floor of some dimly lit room that had the look of a bordello. Red scarves swathed the only lamp, lending a softly hellish light. Panels of red and gold satin filled the room and covered the walls; a thick Persian rug covered the hard wood floor, gaudier than the one in her plaything's office.  
><em>

_He was mumbling something in a state of half-mad delirium, barely able to speak through whatever pain or pleasure she had just caused him. He crawled towards her, his sweat-slicked muscles set ablaze by the red glow of the lamp. His hands came to rest on her painted toes. He looked up at her as if asking for permission. His eyes were wide and he looked so young and weak in that moment that she couldn't resist pressing her foot into his throat._

A tell-tale heat fanned out within her at the mental image of _his dark hair caught in her fist as she forced his face between her parted thighs__. He gasped and sputtered, but didn't try to pull away, instead reaching up to grasp her hips and bury his mouth deeper into the wetness of her folds, lapping hungrily.  
><em>

An insistent throbbing between her legs pulled her back to reality, grounding her in the present moment. The real Seto Kaiba had long since looked up and caught her staring. She blinked and met his gaze squarely, finally aware of him and the way her teeth cradled her bottom lip and how low her eyelids drooped and how the rest of the room seemed to have fallen away from the oddly detached little bell jar that she and her enemy occupied in that moment. She was still hearing his fantasy counterpart's cries for mercy. His brows lifted in unison, the icy depths of his eyes mellowed to a liquid cool that threatened to draw her in.

He knew. He knew, he knew, he _knew_.

_Oh, hell._

Muttering something about the restroom, Tea slung her bag over her shoulder and bolted from the room.

_..._

Kaiba waited until he was sure Taylor and the mutt weren't looking before he slipped off after her. The afterimage of that searing, knowing look on her face was burned into his retinas. He couldn't have imagined that, could he? That she really and truly had just eyed him like a peice raw meat hung on a hook?

_What, are you going to run up and ask her, you idiot? _sniffed the small portion of his brain that hadn't completely jumped ship. He slowed to a stop, took a deep breath ... Then kept on until he found her less than half a hallway away.

She had stopped at a water fountain. Her back was to him, her beat-up tote bag was by her feet, and she appeared to be struggling with something; whatever it was rattled as she tugged and jerked at it. He could hear her swearing under her somewhat labored breath as he got closer.

"Need some help - ?"

The girl startled like a horse, rearing back and stumbling into the fountain, banging her hip hard enough to make _him_ flinch in the process. She lost her grip on the object she had been struggling with, which revealed itself to be a bottle as it left her hands. It hit the ground, the impact popping the partially loosened lid free. A sea of white pills scattered across the tiled floor. The bottle, now empty, rolled to a stop just before his feet.

He knelt, retrieving the bottle from where it lay. His brow arched: _Painkillers_. And the name on the bottle was not her's, but her father's.

He chuckled. _So this is where that "steely composure" comes from._

He stood back up and looked at Gardner. She seemed to have turned to stone, her form frozen and almost comatose. Her gaze was pinned at some undetermined spot past his elbow. She didn't even appear to breathe, though her pulse pounded in her throat; he could see it even from where he stood. He chuckled again, but she didn't seem to hear it.

_Oh, hell._

There comes a point during certain kinds of human interactions when something needs to be said. Something, _anything_, to break a silence so complete and cavernous as to have swallowed up reality itself. To restart the passage of time in order to move past whatever awkward catastrophe has caused it to hang in a state of suspended agony.

He took a step closer. She didn't react. He took another, and then another, until he was more or less looming over her (_British bastard had it right after all_), so close she probably would have tilted her head up to look him in the eye if she were at all aware of him at the moment. He held the bottle up and willed himself to speak. He fired off the first words that came into his mind, thankful to have found them in a (somewhat) timely fashion ...

... until he heard what the words were.

"I'm guessing this isn't Midol?" ***

_Fuck._

She finally looked at him, clogging his veins with ice as she did. The corners of her mouth turned up in what might have been a smile had it not been for that dreadful something in her eyes, fanning out like the hood of a cobra.

* * *

><p><strong>Apologies for my abscence! Next chapter's ... even weirder, so prepare to be tripped the fuck out.<strong>

*** Yes, "unhinge" is a snake-word, damn it! It's a play on "unhinge" in the sense of being mentally screwed and "unhinge" as in loosening the jaw to cobble down a fucking turkey.**

****As someone who's worked in the food service industry enough to know how hot and hectic kitchens can get, trust me when I say there's nothing even _remotely_ unusual about hiding out in the walk-in freezer while a coworker acts as lookout, in case the management should happen along.**

***** Note to Kaiba: "YOU NEVER GO FULL RETARD." (Courtesy of the movie Tropic Thunder and ANYONE WITH COMMON SENSE)**

**Read, review, re-read, revile, repulse, reconsider, reconstruct.**


	8. Strike

_Disclaimer_: If I owned Yu-gi-oh!, I'd probably have money right now. Sadly, this is not so. _*plays the po' broke blues on harmonica*  
><em>

**AN**: In which Tea's soul has a very dark night, and there is an attempted search-and-rescue. Rated especially for violence.

And vomiting.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Strike*<br>**_

* * *

><p>Kaiba had expected a hysterical response.<p>

Even as he stood pinned by that inexplicably daunting look on her face, he had a sense that her real reaction would be something annoying and clumsy and, quite possibly, very shrill. He had thought she would start wailing. Or even reach out and attempt to strike him (_attempt_ being the operative word).

But, perhaps precisely because he had any expectations at all, she did something else entirely.

So he watched in a kind of numb fascination as she flung herself against the drinking fountain, threw her head back and began to laugh.

It wasn't a loud laugh, but it was a hard one. In fact, it was almost completely inaudible save for a sort of hiccuping gasp that seemed wrung from a well of amusement so deep it simply _had_ to be hysterical. Maybe even vaguely psychotic.

In a way, this was almost reassuring. _Okay, so now come the tears. That's what hysterics do. First, the laughter, then the tears. _He didn't particularly relish the thought of calming a hysterical girl, but at least he knew the protocol. Lie, placate, pat her on the head and send her on her pill-popping way with his reputation none the worse for wear, never mind hers. Done and done.

He waited as her laughter subsided. She straightened with a long, contented sigh. She reached up and raked a hand through her hair, dragging the shaggy mess back to reveal not a single tear in sight.

"M-M-Midol ... Oh, you're ... You ... You are _outside_ of enough, Seto. I mean,_ una vera e propria_**, outside of enough ... _Wow_ ... "

Many, many things were quite frankly wrong about this response, even apart from the incongruous chuckles that still escaped her.

For one: She actually seemed to find his "joke" funny. Never mind that he hadn't intended it as such, hadn't intended it at all, had just blurted out the first thing he could think of to quell that infernal silence. Never mind that any self-respecting female would have been horribly offended by said joke. Never mind that, as jokes went, it was in really poor taste. And yet she laughed still.

Two: She had called him by name. No one - _no one_ - except his brother called him by name. And yet it rolled off her tongue so easily that she may well have been saying it for about as long as Mokuba had.

Third, and most perplexing of all: Unless he was imagining things, she had definitely just spoken in another language. A language he himself could not translate, though he recognized it readily enough as being Italian. He could speak German fluently, he was fairly competent with Russian, and he had begun to pick up Urdu in his dealings with Pundari. But as he had no Italian associates, he wasn't particularly equipped to decipher her words.

Her head lolled slightly, her gaze unfocused as it wandered up to the cracks in the ceiling, then fastening onto his face only to wander past him again. Sweat coated the uppermost part of her forehead, the gleam of it peeking out from between her tattered-looking bangs. Kaiba wondered distantly if she was going to faint.

"Hey ... c'mere. I have something to tell you." Her tone was the equivalent of a crooked finger, playfully conspiratorial and offhandedly compelling at the same time.

He arched a brow, outwardly skeptical as ever while inwardly wondering just when the hell he had backed away from her.

"Why can't you tell me from there?" he asked flatly, not moving an inch.

She rolled her eyes, something most had never dared to do in his presence, except Mokuba. And even he knew not to do it too often. "Maybe I like your cologne and want another whiff."

_She didn't say that._

He knew in plain fact that the words _had_ indeed just come out of her mouth and, worse yet, were aimed squarely at him. But still, he knew she hadn't really just said that. He knew it with all his might. And with this "knowledge" firmly in mind, he drew in even closer than he had been a moment ago, the discarded pills crunching under the soles of his shoes. He leaned down until he was practically nose-to-nose with her.

Just to make her uncomfortable. Just to shock her out of this false - _it had to be_ - boldness. Just because he was Seto Kaiba and he fucking felt like it and not because she had explicitly told him to and not because he was suddenly very curious as to what the little bitch had to say about his cologne and not because he wanted to watch the hue of her stupid eyes shifting like the orb of a mood ring as that curious something flashed out at him, rippling through her irises like waves.

"Well?" he prompted with quiet menace.

He watched blankly as she craned her neck, chin jutting forward as she brought her mouth close to his ear. Her breath curled down his neck like an absentminded finger, tracing a not entirely unpleasant jolt clear down his back. She said something to him then, something low and swift and largely incomprehensible because it was almost entirely in Italian.

"_Lo farò__ io sulla gola la vostra ricchezza. E pulire la bocca con quel che rimane di te ***_. This is my promise to you."

Then, having uttered whatever it was, she slid away from him and very gingerly began to walk down the hallway. His eyes narrowed speculatively after her. _Do they even teach Italian as part of the curriculum? She speaks it like a native, as though she's known it for some time._

He looked down suddenly and noted with a roll of his eyes that she had left her bag. He yanked it up by the strap and, without really stopping to think about it, began to follow her. Without ever once looking back, she made it as far as the front steps of the school, stopping to stare out into the empty courtyard. The slightest rumble of thunder drew his attention up to the sky. It was overcast just above them, and the clouds were practically charcoal in the distance. Already the wind was picking up around them.

_Awfully empathic weather we're having ...  
><em>

"One for the road, Gardner?" he asked, shaking the bottle with its few remaining pills. He knew he was flailing at any chance to provoke her again. Something curiously like intuition seemed to be telling him that he couldn't let her leave without some sort of parting shot from her, some indication that this peculiar battle between them would still rage on.

"I won't need it. Not where I'm going," she said vaguely, staring past the gates like a seer into the smoke of a crystal ball. The weariness that pervaded her frame gave him pause. The fight had gone out of her, he was sure of that now.

Thoroughly annoyed at himself and her by this point, he lifted her ugly tote up by its ugly strap and more or less dropped the ugly thing onto her shoulder. She shrugged it off a second later and let it fall to the stone step between them, not even deigning to look at it as it landed with a heavy thud. Instead she looked straight up at him. Or through him rather, as her eyes had taken on a glazed, almost weary look that didn't sit right with him.

"Like I said. I won't need it." She had become a sleepwalker again, her voice hollow. She walked away and didn't look back. Not even once. He watched her leave, savoring his own confusion. Even in defeat, she confounded him ...

It was only when she was fully out of sight that her words finally struck him.

_Not where I'm going, _she had said. He rooted through the bag and found just what he had been dreading to see: her wallet and her phone. She had walked off with no money, no means of identification (save for her uniform, perhaps), no method of contact. He realized why that look on her face had boded so ill.

It was the look of someone deliberately marching into the waiting arms of Death.

He shut his eyes and felt his teeth begin to grind.

_Great. That's just fucking great_.

**. . . . .  
><strong>

_ "... I'll hate you forever if you leave me!"_

"_I'll never leave you, baby girl. I might be taken from you. Or you might be taken from me. But just short of being dragged off by my fucking hair, Mama's never going to leave you."_

There were no visuals, no moving pictures to accompany the fervent words clanging about in her head.

She couldn't tell where she began and the serpent ended, the walls between them were disintegrating, it was like that time on the train when they were one and the same, entwined and united and furious and_ oh god_ _my head_ it was about to split in two, rupture straight down the middle and bleed out onto the subway car for all the purposefully detached passengers to see -

Her breath rasped brokenly through her nose. She was home. Night had fallen on her rain-slicked street.

_What on earth ...? _

She began to move again, but froze as soreness burned her legs.

The ache told her at least part of what she needed to know about the past six hours or so. She must have been on foot for at least part of her journey, perhaps even most of the journey. A peculiar itch in her fingers made her lift her right hand. Dried blood and what could only be a bit of dislodged skin caked her nails; more blood, dried to a rusty brown, coated her knuckles and stained the elbow of her pink uniform jacket. She blinked and didn't react apart from a definite lurch in her gut that felt unrelated to the carnage that stained her.

_Well ... I'll deal with that later. Provided I can remember.  
><em>

She fished her keys out of the left pocket of her jacket, praying that the bitter bile coating her throat wouldn't immediately demand attention, and carefully climbed the six steps up to the front door. Once inside, she continued her slow death march through the foyer, the bile thickening with each step.

Keith's voice floated out from the kitchen. "You're just now getting home? I thought they knew not to put you for a later shift?"

"Mm. Hmm." The darkness of the parlor, out of the circle of light cast by the overhead light in the kitchen, hid both the blood on her school clothes and the lack of her ever-present bag. She sniffed and wished she hadn't. Keith had made dinner in her absence, likely reheating the leftovers from the night before. The thought of crisp, golden duck skin had never seemed so sickening. She clutched her stomach with both arms. _Oh, God ..._

"Tea?"

"Can't t-talk, I gotta - " Words failed her sooner than she had expected, and she raced for the downstairs bathroom, soreness be damned. She made it just in time, practically flinging her entire head into the porcelain bowl as a torrent of something eerily pale burst out of her mouth. She kicked the door shut and tried to breath through the pain.

"Kiddo? Are you alright in there?"

"Stomach flu, Dad, don't worry!" she managed to call back to him before continuing to heave. It occurred to her that she must have stopped somewhere to eat prior to stumbling back home, because those were definitely undigested rice noodles flooding her toilet.

She didn't have much time to dwell on just _how_ she had bought a meal when her wallet was probably in Kaiba's gold-plated garbage can by this point. The sight of the noodles bobbing around like dead jellyfish brought on another set of heaves.

She caught sight of the mirror when she was done rinsing her mouth out in the sink. A ghoulish husk of a girl stared out at her from the glass, her face wet. Tea felt sorry for the scrawny creature.

Somehow she made it upstairs to her room. She sat on the bed for some time, waiting for the dizziness to subside.

Her door eased open, letting in hallway light that seared her eyes. "Uh, honey? You still awake?"

_No, I always sleep sitting bolt upright. _"Mm."

"I promised Roy I'd play cards tonight, ok? Will you be alright by yourself?"

_Who **the** fuck** is Roy**?_ "Uhhmm."

"Alright then, don't wait up, we'll be out late. I left you some aspirin on the counter," he said has he shut the door behind him.

_**Gee, **thanks**.**_

Tea leaned back and was gone in seconds.

**. . . . .**

"Who was that girl before?"

Luanna Tregarde didn't even flinch, though the pain this question elicited made her want to. She glanced over at the orange-haired youth hoisting chairs onto the tables. He had paused, mid-hoist, to ask. She took a long pull from the glass in her hand, letting the scotch burn down into her gut before answering.

"A ghost."

The man "Eh?"

"A ghost, a spirit, a visitation from another realm." She propped her elbows up on the polished bar and dropped her head in her hands. It had been a long day. The reminder of Lillian Gardner's daughter made it seem an eternity. "Fuck, Morrey, why are you even asking? That was days ago."

"You've been weird since she came around. I only wondered."

"Well, keep your wondering to yourself," Lu said as unhelpfully as possible.

Morrey sighed and continued to hoist chairs. Lu took another long sip and tried not to reminisce. A dim smile stretched across her face as she glanced over at the pool tables. The phantom image of a little brown-haired girl hoisting a pool cue with the ease and deftness of a grizzled old shark moved unseen beneath the green-paneled lamp.

_She'll be back, _Lu thought with certainty. She really didn't know if she liked the idea or not. Either way, she was certain. Tea Gardner would be back.

A tear slipped down her face. The old grief resurfaced, just as fresh as the day it had come to roost in her heart.

_But Lil won't. Lil won't ever be back._

She rounded the bar in hot pursuit of another bottle.

**. . . . .**

_"Hey, honey, why the face, eh?" _

_A series of smacking kiss-y noises. __"C'mon, give us a smile!"_

_She had had this same scenario play out on the bus and the train many times. The "give me a smile" routine was especially old, though it was usually one man, not a duet. Regardless, she usually appeased them with a smile, no matter how forced, and subtly quickened her pace in the opposite direction.  
><em>

_Tea didn't smile this time. _

_She stared straight ahead and watched the city at dusk as it flew past the window. She had been riding the train for hours now, falling in and out of a head-pounding daze. At the moment her head grew frighteningly clear and her focus eye-wateringly sharp as contempt crowded out the pain and the presence of enemies gave her self-loathing an external target.  
><em>

_"Oh ho, real tough one, eh? Fix your lip, baby - "  
><em>

_She tuned out the stock phrases and evaluated the situation with a cold eye. She was unarmed, but so were they, as far as she could tell. One of them were significantly larger than her while the other was very lanky, but that was no worry. The final nail in their coffin: Both of them reeked of beer and were unsteady on their feet as the train sped towards the next stop. They were the only three in the car.  
><em>

_A part of her that hadn't already decided made her keep still. Maybe they would get bored. Maybe ...  
><em>

_No. No, they wanted something from her. A bit of entertainment, perhaps? The spectacle of a frightened girl always seemed to arouse these types from their dank little holes. Like sadistic cats toying with a cornered mouse.  
><em>

_**Mouse ...**  
><em>

_She turned her head in their direction and stared them down with bored detachment, knowing the challenge would draw them closer. She had decided.  
><em>

_Sneering and eager now, the two came closer as expected, sprawling out so that she was blocked on both sides.  
><em>

_"Not very nice, are you?" said the lanky one to her left. He leaned down and blew a lock of her hair off her forehead.  
><em>

_That was when she smiled. _

_They didn't seem to be expecting it, watching in wary fascination as her kittenish mouth curved up and back, her teeth momentarily cradling the side of her lower lip. She darted a glance up at them from under her lashes. "Oh, I can be very nice."  
><em>

_"Oh, yeah?"  
><em>

_She nodded. "Oh, yeah."  
><em>

_She stood with provocative grace, seeming to pull herself up by the slight lift of her hips alone. Genuine desire and interest slowly edged out the need for dominance that shown in their eyes. Adrenaline surged up within, almost as if she had summoned it by her will alone.  
><em>

_"How nice, hmm?" said the one she was focusing most of her attention on, the lanky one closest to the sliding doors she would be darting through once she was finished with them. In her peripheral vision, she saw the reflection of his bulkier friend, rendered static and clear now that the train was passing through a tunnel. She watched him edge closer behind her, preoccupied with staring down at her ass. After all, it was angled so fetchingly, her hips cocked to the side like an invitation.  
><em>

_The trap was set and ready to spring.  
><em>

_"This nice," she said, inching just a bit closer to the one in front of her and noting that the goon in back moved in tandem with her. She reached up and pushed her hair off of her neck, dragging her fingers in a distractingly seductive motion that held the kid spellbound. All semblance of cocky aggression faded from his face. _

_That was when she struck.  
><em>

_Her arm lashed out, so fast that even she wouldn't have been able to see it, her index and middle fingers making sharp contact with the boy's eyes. He reared back just as she drew her arm back and up, driving her elbow into the other guys nose hard enough to stain the elbow of her uniform jacket with blood. Clutching his face, he staggered back and hit his head on one of the poles, nearly rendering himself unconscious.  
><em>

_Not wasting a moment, she advanced on the one in front of her, grinning at the sight of him blinking tears from his red eyes. She swept around him, wrapping him a steely embrace, her left arm curled implacably around his neck. In a show of more vindictiveness than genuine skill, she curled her fingers into claws and latched her right hand onto his face, keeping her eyes on the other guy, disoriented with pain as well as booze. With an agonizing slowness and all the force she could muster, she dragged her nails as deep into his skin as she could manage. He shrieked and bucked wildly, attempting to dislodge her. She hopped up, digging her toes into the back of the trapped boy's knees. This forced him down to ground, and her feet balanced perfectly on his calves as she continued to maul his face.  
><em>

_"FUCKING BITCH, GET OFF - !" She pulled her nails out of his face, let go of his neck to get a handle on his hair and bashed him in his nose with the side of her fist, dousing her hand in even more blood as the young man wailed incoherently.  
><em>

_The bulky one, the lower half of his face streaked with blood, made an unsteady dive for Tea and his captive friend. Having seen this coming, the girl yanked the skinny one up by his hair and shoved him with all her might, aiming him at his friends legs. It worked perfectly; he went down like a bowling pin.  
><em>

_The train began to slow to the next stop. She waited for the doors to begin opening before she planted a hard stomp on the top of the larger boy's head, causing injured nose to slam into the floor of the car. Almost as an afterthought, she yanked out the wallet that bulged in his back pocket and took out a fistful of bills, not pausing long enough to count.  
><em>

_Money in hand, she ran out into the station, up the stairs and out onto the darkening streets -  
><em>

A hideous shriek jolted Tea awake. It was another few seconds before she realized it was her own.

"No. No, no, no, fucking _no_."

She scrambled out of bed, fumbling around on the floor for her uniform jacket. She found it in a heap near the door and felt around for the buttons that held the right pocket closed. She popped them open, turned the blood-flecked garment upside down and shook.

Out fell the stolen cash.

She rocked back on her heels, staring through the dimness of the bedroom at the wad of money that lay before her. Proof. Proof, at last, that she was the monster she had always suspected herself of being. Proof, at last. She squeezed her eyes shut as the pounding in her head grew more insistent, like someone battering at the walls of a cage.

She wasn't sorry. That may well have been the scariest part.

"_I need a drink_."

The words were out of her mouth before she could process that her mind had formed them. Her legs were carrying her down to the kitchen before she could stop herself. She started to turn on the overhead light, but thought better of it. She flicked the switch on the light over the stove; the room was suffused with a soft amber glow, casting deep shadows where it failed to reach.

She fished several bottles out the cabinet beside the dishwasher. She looked them over and thought of Lu. Her eyes fastened on a thick article filled with a rich brown liquid; the label said it was brandy. She set it aside and put the rest of the bottles back where she found them, thinking she'd rather not like to explain to Dad why she was going through his cabinet. Then she moved to the stove, no longer thinking at all, merely swept along by a sudden impulse. She picked up the tea kettle and filled it with water from the tap, the brandy momentarily forgotten. Setting it down on the bottom left eye, she turned it up high and went to the fridge. She dug out a lemon and began to cut it in half.

_What am I up to now?_

She squeezed, letting the juice of the lemon drip into a large cup from the drying rack, and then spooned in a lot of sugar from the jar by the coffee pot. Tea spun the cap off the brandy and pour a fair amount of the dark liquor in with the lemon juice. She stared down into the liquids as they mingled and waited for the kettle to whistle. Once it did, she tipped it over the cup, filling it the rest of the way and stirring as she went. The scent carried up by the steam was heady. Sweet.

And familiar.

Tea lifted the cup to her mouth once it had cooled from burning to warm, the familiarity of it all growing stronger, so strong it could almost crowd out the pain entirely. She blew twice more for good measure, pressed her lips to the rim and tilted the cup back.

The warmth of the toddy - _that's what this is, a hot toddy, Lu made it once when I had a bad cold_ - flooded her from head to toe, soothing her in a way the pills never had. It wasn't the liquor that did it, at least not for the most part. It was something else in that cup, something greater than the sum of the recipe's parts, something akin to magic. She climbed the steps in the most beautiful haze, her muscles loose and her eyelids heavy. It hadn't occurred to her how wired she had been until just this moment.

Soon, the cup stood empty on her bedside table. And not long after, she crawled under the covers, turning and turning in circles like she had as a kid to warm the mattress. Just on the verge of true sleep, she sent out a silent thanks to Lu for her toddy.

It was like imbibing memory itself ...

_The appearance of the garden snake curling lazily around her mother's arm startled Tea, but didn't frighten her. Maybe because Mama wasn't frightened. She had that effect.  
><em>

_"Do you know what an emblem is, darling?" the statuesque woman asked, gliding a fingertip gently along the scales of her newly acquired pet.  
><em>

_Tea answered quite confidently for a nine-year-old. "Like a symbol."  
><em>

_"Just so. The serpent is our emblem. Do you know why that is, Tea? _

_She thought and thought, but could find no answer. She shook her head. "Will you tell me?"  
><em>

_"We shed our skin as it pleases us to do so__. We wrap ourselves around the things we wish to hold onto, even squeezing the life out of it if we must. We swallow our enemies whole."  
><em>

_"What about its venom?"  
><em>

_"Our lifeblood, our sustenance, our weaponry. It is whatever we need it to be. Do you know why I'm telling you this?"  
><em>

_"Why?"  
><em>

_"Because the world would have you believe that you're a mouse." _

_Even without the association being explained, Tea knew she didn't want to be a mouse. They were nervous creatures that were easily manipulated, and she didn't want to end up in a lab somewhere. "Why does the world want that?"  
><em>

_"You'll understand for yourself some day. Until then, you must be diligent."  
><em>

_"With my lessons?"  
><em>

_The woman nodded as she let the snake crawl back into the tank she and her daughter had purchased the day before. "Yes."  
><em>

_Something was eating at Tea. She scratched her head. "Snakes, huh?"  
><em>

_"Yep." Her mother put the lid back on the tank.  
><em>

_Tea gasped suddenly. Lillian looked down at her with interest. _

_"Does this mean we're Slytherins?" the girl blurted out.  
><em>

_The woman's laughter miffed her daughter, but only slightly. Mother was beautiful when she laughed. Even more beautiful than when she did anything else, which was saying something. She could say without fear of reprisal that her mother was one of the most beautiful to walk the earth. _

_She laughed so much in those days. Before it all started to slowly unravel ...  
><em>

Her eyes flew open, unfazed by the blazing light of day. The tears had already dried on her face, so she didn't bother to wipe at them.

She stood gingerly on legs that were surprisingly steady. The bone-deep exhaustion had faded to a far more manageable weariness and the throbbing of her skull was almost completely gone save for a short, sharp jolt whenever she turned her head too fast. She padded down to the kitchen, too ravenous to even care that she was traipsing about in the nude.

Two duck legs, one pile of cold spuds, a fistful of baby spinach leaves, several refills of water and half an apple later, she reclined, once again able to think now that her mind wasn't wracked with her stomach's protests.

So her mother _had_ been training her. All the "classes" with top instructors and all the things Lillian herself was teaching her were all lessons in some overarching plan. She was being honed, crafted, meticulously polished and shaped. Not as a tool for her mother's own use, but as a free agent, someone versed in everything from French to pool to eye-gouging, someone who would be capable of …

Of …

Of … _what_?

What the holy hell had Lillian Gardner been training her _for_?

A slight stab in her temple signaled her rising tension. She took a deep breath and forced herself to think it over rationally.

The woman certainly couldn't have been indifferent to her child, even apart from whatever potential she had seen and wanted to develop in her. Each memory that came back, even detached from its greater context within a largely forgotten past, was infused with the woman's love and devotion. Of that there could be no question. She drew this certainty around her like a warm shawl.

She couldn't have been one of those grasping stage moms; she dismissed this possibility even as it occurred to her. Why bank on her daughter's abilities when "Lil" herself was clearly still a semi-divine specimen, quite capable of ripping down any stage of her choosing? And why incorporate various Machiavellian principles into her teachings if she wanted a compliant cash cow?

No. Tea couldn't have been trained as a tool for the woman's use, not with all the emphasis placed on her own autonomy, not with the consistent bolstering of her self-worth. Regardless of what all the training had been amounting to, she was definitely _meant_ to be an independent operator. Tea took another bite out of the apple and kept thinking.

No doubt this was all conjecture. Until the whole picture came back in full-on Technicolor with no dead patches of time in-between the scenes of her past, there could be no real certainty, no real objectivity.

Still: There was no mistaking that excellence had been bred into her, vigorously and methodically. She knew without a drop of arrogance that the child in her memories had been groomed for some kind of promising future, a future she would weave with her own capable hands. She was a dancer able to adapt to just about any style, an acrobat of some kind, and if last night's brawl was any indication, a resourceful - if not formally trained - fighter. She knew at least six different languages, in forms both written and spoken. She had understood Machiavelli and Nietzsche almost as soon as she could read.

_And what have you to show for it? What have you done to be so damn proud of?  
><em>

Anger welled up inside her then, its source and its target one and the same. She was furious with herself.

Here she was, practically molded into an Ubermensch, unable to tap into her own reservoirs of power, unable at this point to even fully gauge what these reservoirs _held_, popping pills to numb even the faintest breath of unpleasantness and starving away every ounce of muscle and strength her body could spare.

She drew her thighs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and put her head down on her knees, trembling on the hard chair with a mix of shame and fury. The weight of all the wasted years that had preceded this moment settled onto her back. She sank down and down into the loathing ...

_Mouse._

She jerked her head back up at the thought, heedless of the painful jolt in the back of her head. She could almost see her mother now. Not as a memory dredged up, but a towering vision summoned in her moment of doubt. She voiced her own thoughts in her mother's signature contralto, the reprimand taking on a resonance she couldn't yet manage on her own: "_Self-pity was most certainly not one of the virtues I bestowed upon you. Get your ass up. Now."_

Tea unraveled herself, planting her bare feet firmly on the ground; her trembling ceased at the imagined scolding, though bitter tears still stung her eyes. She chomped back into the apple and glanced at the clock on the wall. She noted with the barest pinprick of interest that her shift had started roughly a half-hour ago.

Mid-bite, she began to mentally construct a to-do list. She sank her teeth into the juicy meat of the Braeburn with renewed vigor, finishing it off in a matter of seconds. For once, she was looking forward to the tasks at hand. Tea stood, thrilling briefly at the pleasant feel of moving about without clothing, and strode back upstairs for a much-needed shower after chucking the apple core into the garbage. The sunlight streaming through the living room accentuated every hollow and dip between her diminished curves.

She pulled her waitress uniform out of the closet and looked it over.

"As good a place as any to start."

**. . . . .  
><strong>

Monday morning at Domino High found Tristan and Joey in the library prior to the first bell. Yugi joined them, on fire with an anxiety that had built slowly all weekend, like a kettle slowly heating to a whistling boil. He paced the aisle, as if putting a rut in the library floor would make Tea magically materialize in her favorite spot. He checked his phone again. She hadn't called or texted back in the twelve minutes or so since he had checked last.

"I've been trying to reach her for days now, but her cell just keeps ringing. It's not even going to voicemail, it just _rings_. Have either of you seen her?"

"Not since study hall Friday," Tristan chimed in, tapping his fingers restlessly on the top of the shelf he was leaning against.

"Yeah," Joey grumbled from where he sat on the table, feet planted on the chair, "when she _freaked_."

Tristan sighed petulantly and began what had rapidly become an old argument over the past two days. "She did not _freak_. She just ... really needed the restroom."

"Dude. Pitiful. Seriously."

"Well, asshole, if you're so observant, what do _you_ think happened?"

"Come on, man!" Joey roared, his small reservoir of patience fully squandered. "She's been acting weird for days now! Whatever happened didn't have shit to do with needing the toilet!"

"_What happened?_" Yugi shrieked, tired of being out of the loop and having fully made the leap from anxiety to the beginnings of panic. It was one thing for her to not return his calls; it was quite another for her to be in some kind of danger.

"I have _no_ fucking clue!" Joey burst out, relieved to _finally_ have someone other than Tristan's skeptical ass to hash this out with. "I mean, there we are, we're in study hall, right? And we keep asking if she's okay, but then we had to stop cuz it was pissin' her off. Like, seriously, she looked like she was gonna cut Tristan here if he asked again. She went back to her work, but she started waving her hand in front of her face, like - like - like maybe she was going _blind_ or something -!"

"Oh, come _on_," Tristan muttered, put off by Joey's melodramatics even as a tendril of panic began to worm its way up to tighten his throat. He hadn't even considered impending blindness as a possibility! Sure, that's because it was ridiculous, but still...

"_Then_! Oh, man, _then_ she looked up and just stared in front of her. But not like she was spacing out, it was like she was seeing something we couldn't see, man, cuz she _wasn't blinking_. _At all_." Joey shuddered visibly at the memory of that zombie-like look on Tea's face. "Scary shit, man. Scary. Like she wasn't really _there_ anymore ..."

Yugi, who during the course of the conversation had slowly reached up to touch his lips as a horrible possibility began to dawn on him, uncovered his mouth and asked softly, "Is that when she left? Was she still like that? When she left?"

Joey shook his head, partly in answer and partly to clear his mind of the same dread that he could sense brewing in his petite friend. "Nah, she snapped out of it. She got really red in the face, picked up her stuff and booked it. Didn't even look to see if the librarian was watching, she just said she needed to go and she was _gone_."

"Y-you ... you don't think - ?" Yugi began, not even daring to voice his suspicion aloud.

"I dunno ... It kinda fits, though, right?" Joey said, hoping against hope that it wasn't true.

"Yes, but how? I mean, she doesn't even have an Item, so - ?"

"Maybe she's being tapped some other way, like some sort of astral projection - !"

"Um, hello?" Tristan hissed, waving his arms in the air. "Remember me? Are either of you going to complete a fucking sentence so I can be in on whatever -"

"_Dude,_" Joey hissed. "Think about it! She's not herself. She's going into fucking _trances_. She won't tell us what's up. Put it all together _and_ ... ?"

Tristan shrugged, well and truly at a loss. The best he could come up with was: "She's stressing over mid-terms?"

"She's _possessed_! Tea is _possessed_, you idiot!"

"Oh ... Oh! Oh, _shit_, then what are we still doing here?" Tristan bolted for the exit with Joey, happy to have finally gotten through to his cynical compatriot, not too far behind. Yugi gaped after his wayward friends.

"Guys! We have school, that was the bell - !"

"Who the hell _cares_, Yugi?" Joey called back as they left through the back way. "It's not like we haven't done it before!"

Yugi groaned, finding this well-worn excuse even harder to argue with in light of Tea's safety, and took off after his two friends.

Their search began at Tea's house. Keith Gardner answered the door, sporting the neutral expression that was his trademark.

"Shouldn't you three be in school?" he asked as he turned and walked from the door, ostensibly inviting them in.

All three boys began to talk at once, Joey saying they had a mythical out-of-school pass of some sort, Tristan opting for at least part of the truth, Yugi attempting to latch onto whichever excuse sounded about right and just sort of babbling by way of compromise -

Keith lifted his hand, shutting them all up instantly. He eased himself back into his seat at the newspaper-strewn kitchen table.

"No worries, boys, I'm not the truancy officer. What's on your mind?" He held up his hand again as all three of them opened their mouths to speak again. "_One_ at a time, please."

"We're worried about Tea," Yugi said.

"We keep calling, but she won't answer," Tristan dove in.

"Is she here?" Joey finished.

"No, she isn't," Keith replied. "She was very ill Friday. When I went to check on her the next day, she was gone."

Yugi paled. Tristan gulped. Joey asked, "Gone? Like _gone_-gone?"

Keith's brow shot straight up into the stratosphere, his eyes narrowing at the implication that his child would abandon him. "No, she left a note. She said she was well enough to go back to work. That's probably why you can't reach her. They frown on cell phone use during shifts." He stared down into his coffee mug. "I haven't seen too much of her lately either. She's been so busy."

Yugi suddenly darted out into the living room, claiming he needed to use the downstairs bathroom. Joey and Tristan kept up a bit of idle chitchat with Tea's imposing father until they heard Yugi's voice a few minutes later:

" ... were just looking for you ... Uh-huh? Uh-_huh_? Oh, cool, yeah ... Sounds great, we'll be there." Yugi walked back into the kitchen with a glowing smile. "Tea finally called back, you guys! She says we can visit during her lunch hour."

Keith's eyes narrowed even more. "Since when do they give her an hour? She usually gets a thirty."

Yugi shrugged, the very picture of unconcerned adolescence. "Probably all the overtime she's getting. They have to lengthen the break if she's doing more than her share. You know how she is."

Keith grinned. "Such a hard worker, my girl. So you'll be off then?"

"Yeah, let's go, you guys," Yugi said, backing out of the kitchen. "Bye, Mr. Gardner!"

Joey and Tristan bid him farewell and rushed to catch up with their short friend, who seemed to be in a great hurry all of a sudden.

"Well, that was easy," Joey said, almost but not quite sad to see the Tea-hunt end so quickly. "So did she sound alright?"

"How would I know?" Yugi blurted out, sounding very guilty.

"What do you mean, how?" Tristan asked. "If she said we could come by -"

"She didn't _say_ anything. I faked that whole conversation."

Tristan and Joey gawked in transparent amazement.

"You ... You _lied_?" Tristan said, agape. "You're _capable_ of lying?"

Yugi blushed furiously and stomped off to the bus stop. "We're not the only ones out of the loop, guys. If she's keeping things from her dad, she has her reasons. We can't get her in trouble and then expect her to tell us what's going on with her."

After agreeing on this point - no one wants to be a snitch, after all - the three descended upon the restaurant that was Tea's place of employ, figuring she would probably be there picking up extra hours. The place was fairly empty, that lowest point of the grace period that preceded the lunch-time rush.

"You seen Tea?" they asked the bouffant-sporting waitress leaning lazily at the bar.

Gail looked up with interest from the gum she was twirling between her index finger and her teeth. "Oh, you're looking for Gardner? Bit late for that, don't you think?"

"What do you mean? How long ago was she in?"

"Saturday morning. She handed in her uniform."

"EH?" the three boys cried in unison.

"Yeah, yeah! She just struts in, puts her stuff on the breakfast bar and says 'I won't be back. Take care, G'. Not even mad! Real calm-like, you know? Then she shoulder-checks boss man on the way out and goes on her way. Man, that chick's got balls. I've _always _wanted to quit like that."

Yugi, Tristan and Joey exchanged uncomfortable side glances as the waitress seemed to disappear in a cloud of worship that seemed almost Sapphic. They said goodbye, boarded yet another bus and sat in silence for some time. Tea had quit her job. Quit. On the spot. Things were definitely not looking good.

After a few more agonizing minutes, Joey suggested they go to see Mai.

Tristan disapproved immediately: "You're flailing, man."

"Do you have any other ideas?"

He didn't, so they went to Mai's apartment, taking another bus to get there. She lived near the top of a high-rise close to the midtown area. She answered the door looking carelessly gorgeous, her golden hair swept up into a messy bun and her legs long and tan under a -

Joey grunted, pulled from his gawking revery by Mai's fist connecting squarely with his chest.

"Quit ogling my legs," she sneered, "and get on with it, _Joseph_."

He flinched. She had used his full name. She definitely wasn't in a cooperative mood. He cleared his throat.

"Have you seen - ?"

"No."

Joey threw his hands up in the air, what-the-hell style. "You didn't even let me finish!"

"No need. I haven't seen Tea, so you can get to stepping now."

Yugi, who had retreated further out into the hall along with Tristan when Mai had answered the door, spoke up: "How'd you know we were looking for her?"

Mai leaned against the door frame, arms crossed across her ample chest. "She had the good grace to call and warn me about unexpected visitors."

The three boys exchanged charged looks. Tea knew they were looking for her? What was this, hide-and-seek? What the hell was going on?

"Are you _sure_ - ?" Joey tried again.

"Yes, I'm _sure_. Go. Now." _Before I murder you_, the blatantly hostile look on her face finished where her words ceased. She slammed the door on them without saying goodbye.

"She's _hiding_ something," Joey insisted as they rode the elevator back to the ground floor.

"Or she's still pissed that you called her a stripper," Tristan pointed out.

"_Oooh_ ... Shit, I forgot about that."

Eventually, they could think of nowhere else to go but back to school. They went their separate ways in the corridors. Tristan and Yugi managed to make it to their third period classes on time. Joey didn't and got detention for not having a good enough excuse. The discussion at fourth-period lunch hour was taken up with Joey's offense at this injustice. They had settled into Tea's spot in the back of the library once they were done eating. Tristan was halfway through explaining that Joey shouldn't have tried to talk his way out by pointing out just how many other times he had gone missing without any bother when a sharp, gravely voice overrode their conversation:

"Mohto."

The three boys froze. Seto Kaiba, of all people, was parked rather purposefully in front of them. And in his hand was Tea's trademark satchel, the worn strap wound tightly around the young man's fist. He held it out to his short rival, the look on his face telegraphing blatantly just how displeased he was to be playing the courier.

"Will you do something with this? I'm sick of looking at it." _And thinking about suicidal pill-poppers. I'm sick of that, too, _he thought snidely, disgusted with the guilt that kept trying to take root in his gut.

"What are _you_ doing with Tea's bag?" Yugi asked, sounding more incredulous than upset.

_I wish I knew, _he almost said. "She left it with me."

Joey inched forward, eyes ablaze with suspicion. "The fuck do you _mean_, left it with you?"

"She left it. With Me," he repeated slowly. "Each of those words is only one syllable, Wheeler. Even _you_ should be able to work it out."

"Answer the goddamn question!"

"I believe I just did, mutt."

Before Joey could either respond verbally or respond via launching himself at Kaiba's throat, Tristan distracted the other three young men with frantic, windmill arm-flailing. "Shh, SHH. Listen! Do you hear that?"

In the void of silence that followed, they could hear a faint, automated jingling. All four of them stared down at the tote in Kaiba's hand. The billionaire stuck his hand inside and fished out the plain black Samsung that hadn't rung or jingled in the entire two days he had been keeping a wary eye on the bag between short bouts of homework, longer bouts of work-work and very long stretches of paranoid news-channel-surfing. He pressed the flashing message icon and read the text that appeared before handing it over to Yugi, who proceeded to read it aloud to the rest of them:

_**"**__**Pick up my phone at the next ring. **__**I'm calling from another cell.****"**_

"Pick up my ... ? Holy shit, it's _her_! WE FOUND HER!"

Kaiba rolled his eyes, mostly at Wheeler's idiocy, but at least partly at the hysterical relief that bubbled up into his chest like carbonated cough medicine. So Gardner wasn't dead, after all. Hooray.

"I'd say she found you, moron," he muttered grimly.

About thirty tense seconds passed before the promised ring sounded. Yugi slid the answer tab on the touch screen and then activated the speaker.

"Tea! Tea, is that you?" he asked of the device in his hand.

Her voice spilled out into the room, calm and smooth. #_"Yes. Am I on the speaker?"_#

"Yeah, yeah!" Yugi placed the phone on the table and leaned over it, hands braced on the wooden edge.

#_"Who all is there?"_#

"Me, Tristan, Joey ... and, uh, Kaiba."

A tiny exhale that might have been a sigh or a scoff or a tiny laugh slipped through the phone.

#_"Is he really?"_# Whether skepticism, amusement or genuine indifference, something in the girl's tone didn't sit well with the billionaire.

Unable to help himself, Kaiba chimed in acerbically with, "No, Gardner, he just said it to be funny."

#_"That's him, alright. What brings you to this discussion, Kaiba?"_#

Yugi jumped in before Kaiba could say anything: "He said you left your bag. He brought it with him."

#_"How sweet of you, Kaiba. Uncharacteristically so, but sweet nonetheless."_#

Kaiba scoffed at this blase pronouncement, but offered no reply. He wondered if he was imagining the faint emphasis she placed on his last name. Or if he only noticed because he had expected her to brazenly go on using his first.

#_"Yugi, Tristan, Joey. I'm sorry to have worried you. Kaiba ... You don't have to stick around for this if you don't want to."_#

"I might as well stay for the final act of your little melodrama."

#_"Suit yourself. Guys, I didn't mean to behave so poorly Friday. I was very ill and taking it out on you. Just know that I'm alright now and that you can stop looking for me."_#

"How'd you _know_ we went looking for you?" Joey asked.

_And how did you know that I wouldn't just toss your things in the garbage, phone and all?_ Kaiba suddenly thought, the realization zinging through him like a shot of caffeine. It was only just dawning on him how eerily perfect the girl's timing had been when she called. He cast a surreptitious glance around them, as if expecting to see her skulking about with a borrowed cell.

A low, melodious laugh sent a distinctly sensuous ripple through the room, unsettling its four male inhabitants. They had never heard her laugh that way before, so languorous and devil-may-care. The sound made it almost impossible not to imagine her lounging like a pasha in an overstuffed harem, her legs kicked up and her hair splayed across a cushion.

Or maybe that was just Yugi, who shifted restlessly and tried in vain not to imagine her reclining in the buff.

#"_You guys weren't exactly subtle about your detective work."_#

Kaiba bit back a snort.

"What does _that_ mean?" Tristan asked, blushing indignantly.

She laughed just has she had a moment ago, making them uncomfortable again. #_"It doesn't matter, I'm grateful all the same. Just know that I'm okay and that you don't have to worry. I'll be back in school on Wednesday."_#

"Will you be at home between now and then?" Yugi asked. He itched to see her more than ever.

#_"No. I'm going to go visit my aunt."_#

Kaiba, perceptive as he was, didn't miss the shock that froze the three others surrounding the table. They looked at one another, transmitting unspoken sentiments in mere seconds before charging on.

"Your ... aunt?" Yugi asked, the expectation in his voice clear.

She didn't seem to hear it. #_"Yes."_#

"When did you - ?"

#_"See you all Wednesday."_#

"... get an aunt?" Yugi finished, trailing off into nothing as the sound of the dial tone filled the air.

Joey shook his head somberly. "I don't like this. Do you think she's telling the truth?"

"She wouldn't lie - " Yugi said automatically.

"Yugi, you _never_ think she lies about anything! Get a grip, man, when has she _ever_ even mentioned family, besides her old man? It's like she's - "

"_Guys_." Tristan jerked his head towards the vaguely intrigued interloper in the room. Joey shut his mouth.

"So I guess we'll be seeing you, Kaiba?" Yugi offered with a chilly politeness that the pharaoh would have approved of, had he been paying attention.

"I guess you will," Kaiba replied, turning towards the exit. His mind was wracked with more curiosity than he cared to admit. He realized with he was quite looking forward to Wednesday, to the inevitable resumption of their battle.

"You can leave the bag."

"What?"

"The _bag_. Her bag, you can leave it."

Kaiba looked down and realized he had yet to relinquish the hideous tote. His grip tightened on the strap. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the librarian on his way over the corner, likely ready to tell them to either get a book or get the hell out. He made for the exit, tossing his parting shot over his shoulder as he did:

"If she wants it back so bad, she can come and get it her damn self. _From me_."

**. . . . .**

Tea handed the phone back to the raven-haired young man in the seat across from her. "Thanks again," she said with a lazy smile. The smell of coffee beans all around was doing wonders for her mood.

He stuck the cell back into his pocket. His vibrant green eyes, lit with unabashed curiosity, never left her face. "No problem."

Her smile grew as she turned her attention out the window of the coffeehouse. She closed her eyes and braced her chin on her hand, hoping the good weather held out for a long while. Tea could only seem to think about sunbathing. With her hair half-pinned back, she felt the heat all over her face despite the cafe's air-conditioning. It was nice. Nicer than nice.

"So, um ..."

She looked back at him, placid and warm in the sunlight. "Hmm?"

"You're visiting your aunt?" he asked, seeming to realize just how silly it was to do so. He had been there for the tail end of her conversation, after all.

"Oh, yes," she replied, "I'll be on my way there soon, actually. Why?"

"It's just ... it was really good to run into you. If you're going to be away for awhile ... I mean, I don't wanna lose touch again ..."

"It sounds as though you've thought about it," she said evenly before lifting her cup. She blew at the steam rising from the black coffee and glanced up from the dark liquid to see that those remarkable eyes had drifted to her pursed lips.

He gave her a serious stare that bordered on smoldering. "I have. A lot, actually."

She arched a brow, playfully skeptical.

"Okay, okay, it only just occurred to me about ten minutes ago when we ran into each other. But since _then_ I've thought about it a lot."

_Cute, _she thought with a smirk, _very cute._

"Well, you have my number now," she said, her eyes drifting down to where he had pocketed his phone, before drifting slowly back up to his face, "so feel free."

"C-cool," he said, that lopsided grin of his making him look anything but. She realized that she was genuinely charmed by this. Odd, but true. She had always had him pegged as a smooth charmer. Now he seemed off-balance in a most adorable way. Perhaps she had something to do with it? She hit him with the full force of her smile and his blush deepened.

He stood up suddenly, looking very reluctant to go and thus even cuter. "I have to get back to school."

She nodded and resumed drinking the coffee he had bought her.

"See you, Tea," he called from somewhere behind her.

She lifted her fingers in a careless gesture without turning around.

"Bye, Duke."

* * *

><p><strong>Surprisingly, I'm quite happy with this chapter. I hope y'all are, too!<strong>

** Also, on a totally unrelated note: I'm regretting naming Tea's dad Keith. It's a very Dad kind of name, don't get me wrong. It's just that I keep visualizing _Bandit_ Keith whenever I write scenes that he's in. AND THAT'S JUST WRONG. Anyway, onto the footnotes:  
><strong>

***Do I even _need_ to discuss the chapter title? **

**... Yes. Yes, I do, because I love to cryptically over-analyze everything, and I have many, many ****(not that many) ****meanings behind "Strike". **

**"Strike" in the serpent-sense means, of course, the bearing of said snake's fangs; Tea hasn't actually "Bitten" anyone yet, but she has proven that she is quite capable of shaking up the people in her life. The actual biting will come later, which leads to the second meaning. This refers to baseball: strike one, strike two, etc. The next few chapters will be a series of strikes and with good reason: It pertains to just how much impertinence and presumptuousness the men in Tea's life (Kaiba, especially) can get away with; as she is justifiably preoccupied and reexamining the bigger picture, she will be amused and cunning and even obliging ... but only up to a point. Eventually, and at differing points, she will have to punish each of them.  
><strong>

**SPOILER ALERT: Kaiba's punishment will be especially thrilling to see ... er, read, rather. I keep forgetting that fan fiction isn't a visual medium. Damn my cinephile sensibilities!  
><strong>

**** _"Really and truly"_**

***** _"I will gorge myself on your wealth. And wipe my mouth with what's left of you." (Best. Line. Yet.)  
><em>**


End file.
